Miraculous Question
by lillykleaf
Summary: Marinette and Adrien have finally taken down Lila and are now living their happily ever after. Tikki is happy for her little sister, but struggling a bit with feeling left behind. Also, this Plagg guy keeps showing up at her house to eat cheese and play video games.
1. Chapter 1

**Merry Christmas! (Or late Hanukah, or early Kwanza. . . or if you don't celebrate anything I just mentioned, just a very happy hello to you)**

 **Sorry I was gone so long, but look- I brought a present! The third installation of my Miraculous Comic Con series! (If you just stumbled across this, I highly recommend going back and reading the previous two). It's a little shy of midnight when I'm posting this for me which technically puts me at Christmas Eve. If I get enough comments maybe I'll post chapter 2 tomorrow as a bonus present!**

 **A big thank you to everyone who's followed and favorited my past two stories.**

 **In particular I wanted to thank Starlitte, and Starlin's Ghost for their comments and support even when I wasn't posting! You're both so kind.**

 **Without further adue, let the story begin!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

"TIIIIKIIIIII!" Marinette shouted as she came barreling into the shop's back room that morning.

Tikki looked up from the dress she was hemming with an amused smile. "What is it this time?"

"So I was on Reddit this morning-"

"I thought Alya banned you from that," Tikki said, interrupting.

"Hush, I'm an adult and can do what I want," Marinette said, sticking her tongue out at her sister childishly. "Anyway, so I was on Reddit, and look at the thread that I found."

She held her phone out to her sister and Tikki looked over the title before giving her little sister an unimpressed stare. "'Who is Ladybug?' You're going to freak yourself out looking at this. You were just supposed to leave this side of things to Alya and Nino while you focus on building up the reveal and not having a panic attack."

"But my name is on that list!"

"Wait, seriously?" Tikki kept reading and scrolled though the thread until she found what her sister was talking about. She read aloud, " _Number six- Marinette Dupain Cheng. The recent on again/off again girlfriend of Adrien Agreste has also made the list of potential Ladybugs and made it into the top ten most likely despite only coming into the public eye six months ago. Along with her striking resemblance to the superhero/comic artist, there is also debate over whether the letters found in the corner of the most recent Ladybug comic were in fact an "MDC" (for reference to the MDC vs UOE debate on the initials of the latest Miraculous Ladybug comic,_ _click here_ _)_ _it could stand for her civilian name Marinette Dupain Cheng._

"Number seven on the list is Selena Gomez who-" Tikki broke off as she looked up at her sister. "You doing okay?"

"Is it normal to want to both jump up and down in excitement, but also feel the need to puke in panic?"

Tikki laughed. "In your case, I think it is."

"I'm also a little annoyed that they called Adrien and I 'on again/off again'. We never technically broke up. We only faked it until we could take down Lila, who was blackmailing me and trying to steal from Adrien's company." She muttered something else under her breath which to Tikki sounded suspiciously like "the witch," but had a feeling her sister had used a far cruder word.

"Well, 'on again/off again' takes four words to describe the situation, versus the truth probably would have to take a couple paragraphs to properly explain," Tikki said, handing the phone back with a little shrug. "How are things going with you and Adrien anyway?"

Marinette lit up the way she always did when she was talking about her boyfriend. "Really well. A couple weeks ago Dr. Fu suggested that Adrien come in for the two of us to talk over The Incident together and we finally matched up all our schedules yesterday. He's also been helping me to not second guess my choice to reveal myself and be proud of me instead of just my masked accomplishments."

"You're the same amazing woman with and without the mask. I've been telling you since day one," Tikki said, going back to her sewing.

Marinette smiled shyly. "Thanks."

"Do you and Adrien have any plans for the evening?"

Marinette lit up at that, completely distracted from her previous worries. "We're going to his favorite parkour run."

Tikki frowned. "That sounds dangerous."

"Eh, it's not that different than gymnastics. Just take away the safety nets and make it freeform," Marinette said with a shrug.

"Sooo _more_ dangerous."

Marinette gave another shrug. "Perhaps, but it's fun and I trust him to catch me if I fall."

Tikki pursed her lips, but let it go. Her sister was an adult and could do what she wanted. . .even if Tikki thought it was stupidly dangerous.

The day went by quietly and quickly with both of them having plenty of sewing to do. When closing time came, Adrien appeared to take Marinette home. The two left together, and Tikki shooed Manon away to finish closing up and do some cleaning before finally heading home herself. She had a tupperware container of lemon chicken as well as a plate of cookies with her name on it. She pulled into her parking lot and made her way upstairs to her apartment. Before she even unlocked the door, she could hear the clacking of keys and sighed.

"You've got to be kidding me," she muttered before she threw open the door.

Plagg looked up from the miniature man cave he had created for himself on her coffee table and removed his headphones. "Sup? Care to join me for a couple rounds?"

Tikki felt her snark rise, mostly out of habit at this point than actual annoyance. "No, I have things to do. Don't you have your own apartment to troll in?"

"I do, but you have my computer."

"So take it home," she said, walking past him and into her kitchen.

"But it was so heavy and hard to get it here," Plagg moaned.

"So you just live here now?" Tikki said, raising her voice so he could hear her from the other room.

"Basically, yeah," Plagg shot back.

As they bickered, she turned on the oven and pulled out her tupperware of lemon chicken, popping that in the microwave and pulling out a loaf of French bread along with olive oil and some cheeses. On one slice she put parmesan, and on the other she put camembert then put them on a cookie tray and popped them in the now preheated oven. While those two cooked, she grabbed some spinach, julienned carrots, and she diced up a small apple and tossed all of that before pulling out two plates and assembling everything between the two of them.

That done, she took both plates and walked back into her front room where Plagg had cleared a space on the coffee table for Tikki to sit down next to him on the floor and hand him one of her plates.

"Thanks. If you don't like me coming here, why'd you give me a key?" Plagg said as he took a bite of chicken.

"Why feed you either, for that matter? Everyone says that just makes stray cats stick around."

"Oi. If anyone's the cat- it's Adrien. He's the weirdo running around in a leather cat suit."

This was Tikki's new routine. Come home, fix dinner, bicker with Plagg, kick him out right before bedtime. When it first started, their arguments had much more heat behind them, but now it was more a matter of habit. Tikki wasn't sure she knew how to talk to this man without fighting with him.

It was a new experience for her. She'd always prided herself on being easy going and able to get along with just about everyone, but he had this way of getting instantly under her skin. She'd yet to give him a proper thank you for all he'd done for her sister. As well as, more recently in his helping keep away the loneliness now that her sister spent all of her time with her boyfriend. Especially now that Marinette had moved in with him. She'd tried to thank him, but every time it came out with a bite of sarcasm and they'd end up fighting again. So she'd taken to cooking for him as a way to express her gratitude.

Bickering aside, she found herself enjoying his company. Around him, she didn't feel a need to be perfect, which was a big deal to her. He was chaotic and loud and brash, but he had a confidence about him that only came from being comfortable in one's own skin.

Plagg took a bite of the cheesy bread and moaned. "This is amazing."

"Glad you like it; it stunk up my whole fridge."

"I can buy you a mini fridge to keep it in if you like." Plagg said it so casually, she wasn't sure if he was joking or not.

"You know, you could also just go home to eat."

He paused mid-bite and put his fork down. "In all seriousness, do you want me to leave?"

Tikki started at that and put her fork down as well. "Plagg, I'm sorry if I made you think that. You've been a big help to my sister and to me as well. You're a great friend."

Plagg coughed and looked away. "It was nothing."

Tikki reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, I'm serious. I know we kinda started off on the wrong foot and have been tripping around each other ever since, but I really do consider you my friend."

He looked over and gave her a small smile. "Thanks." There was a beat of silence and then he spoke again. "Hey, after you're done with dinner, you up for a friendly pvp game?"

Her face slipped from a kind smile to a competitive smirk. "Oh, it's on."

* * *

 **Hope you liked it. Let me know what you think! Like I said before, if I get enough reviews, maybe I'll post chapter 2 as well ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

**Why hello there! Thank you so much for your kind reviews and thank you to all those who favorited and followed as well ^_^ As promised, here is your second Christmas present. Let me know what you think!**

 **I do not own Miraculous Ladybug**

* * *

"-and then we played Ultimate Mech Fighter 3 all night until we fell asleep on the couch together," Adrien said.

Plagg barely tuned back in to the end of his best friends long-winded play by play of how last night had gone. They were sitting together in Adrien's office during lunch break, both having just finished eating, but not quite ready to get back to work. Adrien had wasted no time going off on one of his my-girlfriend-is-the-greatest rants, and Plagg just didn't have the will power today to listen to the same fluff he'd been hearing for months now.

He was too busy focusing on his own life and the dangerous situation he realized he was getting himself into.

"That's great," Plagg said.

Adrien raised an eyebrow. "So, what happened with you last night?"

Plagg scowled and the problem he'd been thinking just came tumbling out of his mouth. "Tikki called me a 'good friend'."

Adrien just blinked as he processed the complaint. "Isn't that good? I thought you thought she didn't like you."

He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "It means I'm one step away from being friendzoned!"

"So ask her out before it's official," Adrien said, like it was an easy task.

"But it took this long just to get her to call us friends. I'm pretty sure if I asked her out right now, she'd say no."

"You won't know until you try," Adrien pointed out. "I asked Marinette and look at how things turned out for us."

"She told you no about a million times before you got that yes."

"But I kept at it and eventually she came 'round."

"So, you stalked her into submission, is what you're saying, right?"

Adrien frowned. "Excuse me, Mr. Breaks-into-his-crush's-apartment-every-night, but I don't think you have the high ground here."

"It's not breaking in if you have a key," Plagg said defensively.

Adrien rolled his eyes. "You sat outside her apartment like a lost puppy every day until she took pity on you and gave you a key so you wouldn't wait in her hallway and weird out her neighbors."

"Hey, I'll take my wins any way I can. Besides, she's been making me dinner the last couple of nights, so I think that's gotta count for something, right?" he said, looking hopeful.

"Not necessarily, she's a Dupain-Cheng and that's kinda just what they do. Marinette makes cookies for her therapist almost every time she has an appointment with him."

"Well maybe she has a crush on her therapist," Plagg snarked back.

"Nope," Adrien said, completely secure in himself and his relationship. It made Plagg want to punch him.

Plagg threw his head back and groaned. "How can you tell if a girl likes you when she's _literally_ nice to everyone!?"

Adrien shrugged. "Ask her out."

Plagg's head went from back to forward and he hit the desk with a thump. "Even then, I wouldn't be sure if she liked me or was just being nice."

"Then ask her what she thinks of you. If you want to know what's on her mind, just ask her."

Plagg lifted his head up just enough to glare at his friend. "Because I'm so well known for my abilities in open and honest communication skills."

"Look, if she's worth it, you'll figure it out. Either you'll learn to speak something other than sarcasm or through some miracle she'll see through your giant pile of barbwire and bull crap that you hide behind."

"Stop pretending to be all sage and wise when you keep action figures on your desk," Plagg said, feeling stung at Adrien's words.

Adrien didn't look put off in the slightest, in fact he looked down and the Ladybug and Chat Noir action figures with a fond little smile. "I think in our line of work a touch of nerdy is perfectly respectable."

Plagg snorted. "A touch? Have you seen your living room?"

"My office is not my living room. Anyway, what are you planning to do for this year's security test?"

"That was the worst misdirect in the world, and don't think that by randomly springing the question on me you can get me to give you any clues. Besides, according to paperwork, I already did my annual security test when I had Wayzz and his gang casing the place. You caught them trespassing. Good job. Blue team wins. You beat the hackers Red Team. End of story."

Adrien snorted. "You and I both know that wasn't true. I'm not going to let you slack off on this. You're the one who challenged the entire company to be team blue this year."

Plagg groan. "That was just because I didn't want to go to meetings and pretend I took them seriously."

"Well, we just got hacked a few months ago, so I think you should take the training exercise seriously."

"But we caught them and they never got to sell the information. All's well that ends well."

Adrien pinched the bridge of his nose and glared at Plagg across the desk. "I'm serious. You have to do something. Don't make me pull the boss card."

Plagg slumped in his chair. "Fiiiiine. I'll think of something."

"Great, and can you try to get it done before the up and coming Comic Con? I really don't want to have to worry about anything around then."

Plagg raised an eyebrow. "Because all the world arranges themselves around what convinces you. Cyberattacks don't wait for when it's best for you."

"I know that. I also know that this is just a drill, though, and I've got big plans for this upcoming convention, so I would really appreciate it if you did me a solid here."

Plagg sighed. "All right, but only because you've had enough people messing in your love life for the year."

Adrien blinked. "How did you know my plans involved Marinette?"

Plagg rolled his eyes. "Because everything in your life as of late involves Marinette."

Adrien grinned sheepishly, and Plagg became suspicious of the big dopey grin spreading across his best friend's face. "Yeah, I guess it does."

"What aren't you telling me?" Plagg asked.

"Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing yet," Adrien said, waving his hands in the air in a panic.

Gosh, he was even starting to pick up some of Marinette's mannerisms. Those two really spent too much time together. "Nothing _yet_? Then it's something soon. What's going on?"

Adrien looked flustered. "Look, I promise I'll tell you, but I'm still figuring things out, and I'm afraid that if I say anything, it'll jinx it."

Plagg nodded and held up his hands in surrender. "All right. All right. I get it, but know that I'm not forgetting this and I expect an explanation sometime soon."

Adrien nodded. "I will. I swear."

* * *

 **Thanks so much for reading and I hope you are all having a wonderful holidays. (If not, I hope this brightens your day a bit at least)**

 **Love you all!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello and welcome back! Hope you all had a happy new year.**

 **A quick note to the guest reviewer:**

 **Osaka-okaasa- You're welcome. Hope you enjoyed it!**

 **And onward with the story!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug**

* * *

Tikki grabbed her purse and double checked the list on her phone. "Alright, I'm making a fabric run. Anything I need to keep an eye out for?"

Marinette stopped her sewing machine as she thought. "I need some more of that blue spandex for the mermaid costume."

"Can you get me something with glitter?" Manon called from the other room.

Tikki pursed her lips. "I thought I told you to stop using the shop for personal projects."

"You can take the fabric price out of my next paycheck," Manon said, coming to stand in the doorway and bringing her hands up in front of her face to plead.

"If I find something in the discount section, fine. What color?"

"Any primary color, but I would prefer pink or yellow," Manon called as Tikki headed out the door.

She gave a thumbs-up to let the teen know she'd been heard. In the parking lot, she was met with the rather surprising sight of Pollen leaning against her car.

"What are you doing here?"

Pollen jumped and looked up, a sheepish expression crossing her face. "Hey, I didn't expect you here."

Tikki raised an eyebrow. "At my car?"

"I didn't expect you here so soon."

Tikki eyed the way her friend was nervously clutching her purse and the fact that she was wearing sensible tennis shoes instead of her regular heels – that together with the fact that she knew Pollen was supposed to be at work - didn't bode well. "Get in. I have some errands to run, and you can tell me what happened on the way."

They hadn't even pulled out of the parking space before Pollen launched into her tirade.

"-and then those jerks fired me with no warning and for no reason. It was totally unfair!"

"What happened before that?" Tikki asked.

"I was just giving a customer fashion advice. That dress she was trying on was meant for an hour glass shape, not her butternut squash figure, and the blue made her look sallow."

"Pollen!" Tikki sighed.

"What?"

Tikki spent twenty minutes trying to explain, but gave up when they pulled up to the fabric store.

"Just try to be gentler with your advice next time, alright? Now, can we talk about something else?" Tikki said with exasperation as she got out of the car.

"Okay. How are things going with Geek Charming?"

Tikki tripped in shock. "Are you talking about Plagg? Please, he's more of a King of Chaos. He's completely changed my life."

"OOOooo!" Pollen exclaimed, putting a hand over her heart as she pretended to swoon.

Tikki glared as she grabbed a cart and headed towards the spandex isle. "I _meant_ he completely throws me off my schedule. You know how I feel about my schedule."

"That's a good thing though, right? Dr. Fu is always talking about how I should be open to change."

Now that Tikki thought about it, all of her current friends were people she'd met either in therapy or through Wayzz. . . except Plagg. "If it was actually productive change, sure, but he's just there because he's too lazy to move his computer."

"No, I think he likes you."

Tikki almost dropped the bolt of fabric she was holding. "You must be joking."

"No. Think about it. The guy is ridiculously rich. He could pay someone else to move his stuff for him if he didn't want to move it, or just go buy a new computer. Instead he goes over to your house almost every night to sit on your couch, in front of a coffee table, and play video games. He's like a dog begging for scraps, but instead of food, it's whatever attention from you he can get."

The more she thought about it, the more Pollen's theory made sense. "Crap, I'm going to have to turn him down."

"Why?"

"Because-" Tikki found she couldn't really think of an answer. She had answers for this, right? She clearly remembered getting mad enough to rip his head off just the other day, but for some reason all that was coming into her brain was how he'd gotten her laughing afterwards.

"Look, I know he's the world's most socially awkward penguin, who doesn't know how to talk without sarcasm, and is way too into cheese-" (Were those his down sides? Sometimes Tikki wasn't sure. Except the cheese. Pollen was definitely right about the cheese) "-but I think he's overall harmless and I think you should at least think it over for a bit."

They fell silent and Pollen let her mull it over as they got the rest of the fabrics; Tikki even found a few yards of pink, glitter fabric in the discount bin for Manon. She thought about it through the checkout and all the way back to the car before she slumped back against the car seat in defeat.

"Alright, I'll think it over."

When Tikki came home that night, she could tell Plagg was in a bad mood. For one thing, he didn't notice her come in. For another, he was muttering, "Die! Die! Die!" under his breath as his fingers pounded the keyboard.

She went over and put a hand on his shoulder to get his attention.

Plagg jumped and screamed, "Sweet cheese and crackers! Don't sneak up on me like that!"

 _Yeah, a real winner, this guy._ "Not many other options when you're wearing noise canceling headphones," she deadpanned.

He bowed his head and looked a little sheepish. "Sorry."

Okay, that was out of character. Where was the snarky comeback? She sat down on the couch beside him. "You wanna tell me what's up?"

He groaned and cursed as his distracted state led to his game's character getting killed.

Tikki winced. "Sorry."

Plagg exited the game and took off his headphones. "It's fine. I was losing anyway."

"You wanna tell me what's going on?"

"Just work stuff."

"Maybe I can help," she said, sitting beside him. Perhaps she could help him and pay him for helping her sister.

"Do you know how to hack into a security system?" he asked dryly.

"I've watched a lot of heist movies."

"Yup. That's all you need. No degrees in computer engineering or cyber security required – just a lot of Hollywood dramatized movies to watch," he said with a roll of his eyes.

She frowned, though his snark only mildly grated on her skin now since she'd spent so much time with him. "Watch it. I was going to make a camembert alfredo for dinner, but you can always eat at your own place."

He immediately looked chagrined. "Sorry. I may have bitten off more than I can chew, and it's stressing me out."

"What's going on?"

"You've heard of red teams and blue teams in cyber security, right?"

"I'm sure you're about to explain it to me," Tikki said patiently, settling in and readying herself for some fancy, over-her-head explanation.

"Blue team is the side that makes the security programs. Red team is who tries to find the weakness so it can be fixed before an actual bad guy can exploit them."

Tikki nodded. "All right. I'm following so far."

"Well, every year our company does a sort of 'capture the flag' event where blue team has to protect a dummy file and red team tries to steal the information. Adrien says it's good for team building, but it's also a good way to test our own defenses and see where we can improve."

"I'm not seeing the problem yet," Tikki said, surprised he was doing a good job thus far at explaining in a way she could understand while not sounding condescending.

Plagg dragged his hands down his face, holding them there when he reached his chin. Tikki bit her lip to make sure she didn't laugh at him when he did so. His melodramatics were a little amusing, she'd admit. "The problem is that I made a very stupid move and challenged the entire cyber security team saying it could be just me on red team and I would still beat them."

"Why on earth would you do that?" Tikki said, trying to decide if she should be annoyed or impressed at the hubris of this man.

"If I'm being honest, I mostly just didn't want to go to the team strategy meetings."

Not proud, just lazy. "Sounds like you may have brought this on yourself."

"I knooooowww! But I probably could have done it if I hadn't spent so much time dealing with the Lila debacle, plus then I had to do a bunch of paperwork so I didn't get in trouble with the police for telling them I hired your friends to try to break in."

Pollen had gushed to her about getting that paycheck and how many purses she was going to buy with it. "Why can't you count the Lila thing as the company exercise?"

"That's what I said to Adrien! But it doesn't fulfill the team building part of the exercise, so it doesn't count to him."

"Why don't you just do what you told the police you were going to do?"

Plagg looked at her blankly. "What do you mean?"

"Get Wayzz and everyone to help you out."

His brow crinkled as he thought. "Are any good with computer skills?"

Tikki shrugged. "Wayzz and I are probably the best, but from the sound of things you're pretty confident you have the brain power. You just need some extra hands to help out."

"Hmmm. I'll have to think of it, but that could work. Thanks, Bug," Plagg said, rubbing his chin in thought.

Tikki clapped her hands. "Great! While you think on that, I'll go make dinner and just let me know if you need me to contact Wayzz or anything."

He gave a noncommittal hum, and she could tell he was already lost in thought. She kept her kitchen clattering down to a minimum to try not to disturb him, but any time she looked over it seemed like he was in his own world and her efforts were moot point.

The camembert didn't want to dissolve into her pasta sauce, so she scrapped that and tried again with her regular recipe, saving the strong cheese for a topping once her alfredo was done. She didn't necessarily mind it herself, but she one hundred percent preferred cookies.

Plagg jumped a little when Tikki put his plate of food in front of him and this time she did let herself laugh at the wide-eyed, deer-in-the-headlights look he gave her.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to space out like that."

"It's alright," Tikki assured him. "It's kinda nice to see you have a serious side."

Was it her imagination, or did his face go a little pink when she said that? Gosh darnit, Pollen! Now she was seeing it in everything he did and wanted to bang her head against a wall for not noticing sooner. Her stomach felt queasy and her skin had a hot itch that was demanding she move, get up and go. Though she felt it was more from nerves rather than anything actually against Plagg. She hadn't dated in . . . could one even call whatever she and Wayzz once had 'dating?' She'd never dated anyone seriously before, if she was honest with herself. On top of that, Plagg was Adrien's best friend – who was dating Marinette, her sister – so if things went wrong it could make for some awkwardness in her future.

On the other hand, if things went right. . .

She wished she had a way to test things out without actually getting anyone's hopes up.

"I've been serious before," he sputtered.

Rather than responding, she took a bite of her dinner and nodded at him. "You gonna eat?"

He took a bite and hummed in appreciation. "You really know how to cook."

She smiled, and though Pollen's words now whispered in her mind, she could also tell that his smile was genuine. "Thanks. My parents always believed cooking was good bonding time, so I've been helping in the kitchen since I could stand."

His smile looked wistful. "Must have been nice."

"What about you?" She cocked her head to the side in curiosity.

He raised an eyebrow. "What about me?"

"What did you do for fun with your family?"

He frowned at his pasta. "My parents and I never exactly saw eye to eye, and none of us were really the warm fuzzy type."

 _Welp, great way to put your foot in your mouth, Tikki. Abort! Find new topic._ She cast her eyes around the room, desperate for an idea. Her eyes caught sight of the calendar hanging on the wall where she had an upcoming weekend highlighted in pink. _Well that's a good way to kill two birds with one stone_. "Hey, are you going to the convention this this month?"

Plagg blinked, looking startled at the abrupt topic change. "What?"

"The comic book convention. Come on, I know you're into all of that."

He squirmed in his seat. "It's not that I'm not into comic books and stuff, but Adrien usually goes to those things, and it's difficult to arrange having both of us out of the office at the same time."

Tikki felt her shoulders sag a little. "Oh, that makes sense. Too bad. Marinette, Alya, Nino, and Adrien will probably be busy the whole time, so it'll just be me and Manon. I thought it'd be nice to have someone to hang out with when I'm done with vendor stuff."

"I mean, it's not impossible," Plagg said quickly, verbally backpedaling so quickly she was surprised he didn't fall off the couch.

Tikki beamed at him. "Really? That would be awesome!"

"I'll be there." He paused as he considered something then made a pinched face. "I mean, I'll do my best. I'll have to move my schedule around at work, but I should be able to do it."

She put her plate down to give him a side hug and felt him stiffen at the sudden affection. "Thanks. I appreciate the effort." So much for not getting anyone's hopes up. She had to admit though, she was starting to feel pretty excited herself.

Plagg returned the hug with a few awkward pats, before resting his hand on her shoulder. "S-Sure. No problem."

* * *

 **Hope you all enjoyed! et me know what you think ^_^**

 **Have a great day!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Hey, sorry I'm a day late. I chose the adult route for once and cleaned my house instead of getting on fanfiction. Hope you enjoy this one. It's full of angst, but funny angst (I hope)**

 **Quick reply to the anonymous reviewer from last chapter**

 **Guest- So glad you're enjoying it!**

 **Onward with the story!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Plagg didn't people. On principle he preferred to do it as little as possible. This is why he got a job that, by description, should only involve interacting with computers. The problem, was going into business with a guy who was the people-y-est people person he had ever met in his life. They made a pretty good team actually – Adrien with his model smile and aura of sunshine-y goodness to bring buyers in, and Plagg with the suspicion and intelligence to see through other people's bullcrap to keep scam artists away.

This was his purpose in the business. He thought that was clear. He thought everyone agreed that this was what he was best at. He was not the people person. So why, for the love of brie, was he sitting here in a fancy button-up shirt Adrien had shoved at him and a pained smile on his face as they talked to a banking company about why they should buy Agreste Company's new product Black Cat to protect their customers' money?

So what if it was potentially the biggest deal they'd ever made? All the more reason Plagg shouldn't be there! He'd been biting his tongue any time one of them asked a stupid question. His tongue was starting to feel swollen. What if it ended up damaged irreparably effect how cheese tasted? Adrien had better appreciate his sacrifice. Thankfully it seemed to finally be drawing to a close, thank sweet Cheesus.

"We still have things to discuss with people on our end, but I think we have everything we need here. We'll review your proposal and let you know if there are any issues," Mr. McMustache-McDudeface was saying. They'd all said their names at the beginning of the meeting, but Plagg had been too busy pouting to care.

Adrien was all handshakes and smiles, toeing Plagg to let him know he should join in. "We appreciate you hearing us out and look forward to your reply."

Plagg couldn't think of anything nice to say so he opted for a nod with each handshake and hoped the pain in his smile wasn't as palpable as he thought it was. The torture wasn't over, because then they had to walk them out and small talk. Adrien, enigmatic starfish that he was, held most of the attention as he discussed the art of parkour and where he was planning on going that weekend to participate in said sport.

One of the men, a tall, twiggy guy with a large nose that looked like a beak, turned to Plagg. "And what are your plans for the weekend?"

Gaming his brains out and creeping in his crush's apartment, but he was pretty sure Adrien would throw away his cheese if he said that out loud. He tried to think of what posh people did that didn't sound totally stupid and remembered that time when Adrien had dragged him to Italy for a business meeting and they'd gone to a winery to sample their wares. "Cheese tasting."

The man brightened. "Oh, I didn't realize there was an event going on. Where are you attending?"

Crap. At least he liked cheese so Plagg couldn't totally hate him. Even if the guy was trying to talk to him. "I'm having a cheese and wine party with a couple of close friends. I signed up for an online membership and they ship gourmet cheeses to your house. I have a friend who brings wine and we share with the party." Ha! That wasn't technically a lie. He sometimes bought cheese platters from the local shop on his way to Tikki's and they ate it while drinking whatever wine she'd bought on sale.

The man looked intrigued. "And how do you coordinate to know that the wine and cheeses go together?"

Plagg shrugged. "Usually we don't, the Russian Roulette is part of the fun of it. Everyone has a different palate, so sometimes we find unconventional combinations that actually go pretty well together." He really should get an award for his ability to pull stuff like this right out of his butt.

The man nodded. "Yes, I can see the appeal in that. I don't think it'd go over very well with a large group, but I can see how it could be entertaining with a small group of intimate friends. If you don't mind my imposing, I'd like to attend one of the times you do this to see how it's done."

RETREAT! Backtrack! Backtrack! Backtrack! Unnecessary socializing eminent! He was about to give an excuse for why that would be a very bad idea when he caught the secret glare Adrien shot him. It's like the blond could sense imminent rudeness. "Um, yeah. I don't know that we'll have enough to go around this time, but I can schedule you in for next time."

The man beamed at him. "Brilliant. Just let me know when."

"Yes, you'll have to reschedule with your pigeons," Mr. McMustache-McDudeface said earning a laugh from the other two compatriots.

"Oh, do you have an interest in ornithology, Mr. Ramier?" Adrien asked.

They made it the rest of the way out of the building without Plagg having to talk anymore since Mr. Ramier spent the rest of the time all the way up to the door regaling the wonders of birdwatching. His compatriots looked like they'd all heard it before and hadn't been interested the first time either.

The bank people left, and Plagg breathed a sigh of relief as he and Adrien walked back inside.

Adrien side-eyed him. "You know you're going to actually have to host a party now, right? You can't just offer that to investors and not follow up."

"Apparently I can't just tell them no either. I saw that glare you were giving me."

"Then maybe you shouldn't lie," Adrien said bringing a hand up to rub his temple.

Plagg threw up his hands in exasperation. "Why do people need to know my business anyway?"

"It's called socializing."

"Ick," Plagg said with a shudder.

Adrien ignored him as he now had his thinking face on. "I can talk to Marinette and we can help you plan a party. She could probably make some hors d'oeuvres to go with the event as well, I can bring the wine, Nino could probably make a playlist to have for ambiance-"

"Or," Plagg said, cutting him off. "I could do it myself."

Adrien raised an eyebrow. Plagg did not appreciate how the aura of judgement in the room rose with it. "You're going to plan a party. A semi-formal event. With people."

"Yes," Plagg snapped. "I am perfectly capable."

Adrien raised his hands up, palms first, in a calming gesture. "I'm not saying you're not. I'm saying it would be easier if you let someone help you."

"Thanks, but no thanks. I've got this."

"Like you've got the Red versus Blue competition?" Adrien asked.

Again with that judgmental eyebrow! "I am perfectly capable of being Red Team all by myself, and I will whoop all your butts."

"Meowch. No need to be catty about it," Adrien said.

Plagg glared. "You did not just try to diffuse the situation with a lame pun."

Adrien put a hand over his heart. "I'll have you know that my puns are Meow-nificant. Marinette told me so."

"No, she told you they're lame," Plagg said with an eye roll.

"Yes, but she laughs at them, so I know she likes them."

"She must be a saint then."

"She's perfect," Adrien said, his eyes going misty as he thought about his girlfriend and Plagg knew if he didn't change the subject, he'd be subjected to yet another soliloquy on the magnificence of sunshine's soulmate.

"All right, lover boy. Don't rub it in to us single folk," Plagg said as he reached his office first. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'm in desperate need of a cheese fix because _someone_ wouldn't let me have my morning camembert."

"You stink, and I didn't want you getting crumbs all over my shirt."

"Well now I'm going to deliberately get crumbs all over your shirt and not clean it when I return it to you."

"Dude!" Adrien shouted, earning a few curious stares from some heads peeping out of their offices.

"I can't hear you; I have cheese to eat," Plagg said, letting the door swing shut.

He did not get cheese all over Adrien's shirt. He was not so petty that he would waste precious cheese in such a way. Besides, maybe he could impress Tikki if he showed up tonight dressed up. It couldn't hurt right?

* * *

 **I think Plagg might be my favorite to write. The sass is strong with this one. Hope you enjoyed ^_^**


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello! A new chapter for all you beautiful people. No real news to give here and no anonymous comments to reply to so. . . ONWARD!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

A cry a frustrastion caught Tikki's attention as she was cleaning up for the end of day. She came in back to find Manon scowling at a fabric creation lumped up on a sewing machine. It was the same pink, sparkly material she'd bought the other day.

"Let me guess, the needle snapped?" Tikki said, coming over to inspect.

"Yes! I can't figure out what happened. This is the third time!" Manon cried, throwing her hands up in frustration.

"If I had to take a guess I'd say you were moving too fast and it melted some of the glue just enough to get on the needle and now it's broken."

Manon looked horrified. "I broke the machine?"

Tikki gave her a pat to the head. "No, probably just the needle, but be careful or it could break the machine if you do it over and over again."

Manon looked sadly at the fabric in her hands. "But I don't know what I'm doing wrong."

"Is this your first time working with glitter dot fabric?"

Manon nodded.

"All right. This can be pretty tricky if you're not used to it. Go get a roll of wax paper out of the break room and I'll fix the needle."

Manon cocked her head in confusion, but left to do as she'd been asked. While she was gone, Tikki carefully extracted the fabric and fished out the broken needle lost in the middle of it and then went to her supply box and grabbed a small, clear dropper bottle. Manon came back in with the roll of wax paper.

"Now let me show you a few tricks to make your life easier. First we'll take the new needle and a drop of this magic non-oil lubricant. Rub that on the needle and then put it in the machine. Then we're going to take a bit of the wax paper the same length of what you're sewing and lay it over the top of the fabric. These two combined will help keep it from gumming up. The last thing you need to do is go slow, if you move too fast the needle gets too hot and melts the glue holding the sequins in."

Manon looking ready to cry. "You are a god of creation. Thank you! I was ready to give up."

Tikki gave a small laugh, her heart feeling light at the praise. Refreshing after a day of listening to clients complain about what she'd gotten wrong. "I don't know about 'god.' I'd settle for just a fairy."

"A queen among fairies then. Thank you so much. I know you weren't planning to stay late."

"It's fine. I'm happy to help and the creation is always the fun part. I've been doing mostly paperwork lately. I forgot I enjoyed this."

Manon wrinkled her nose. "I don't ever want to do a job that I hate."

Tikki laughed harder. "Part of being an adult is doing unpleasant things- like paperwork and taxes."

"Ew," Manon said. "I feel like I've pretty much always wanted to sew. Having Marinette come over with all of those different creations when I was a kid, I thought she was magic."

Tikki nodded. "Marinette always did have a talent for it."

"What did you want to be when you grew up?"

"I am grown up."

"Yeah, but when you were little what did you want to be?"

Tikki shrugged. "That was a long time ago. I don't remember anymore. Do you have someone coming to get you?"

Manon nodded. "Yeah, I've got a ride coming. There's a teen's night at a club near here so I was going to work on this a bit before heading there."

"And your mother is aware of this?"

Manon rolled her eyes. "Yes. Would you like to call her to check?"

Tikki laughed. "I'm not your babysitter. Technically, I'm not even your employer. I just want to make sure your safe."

Manon softened a little at that. "Yeah, sorry. I'll be fine. You head home. You look like you could use some alone time."

"That I could," Tikki agreed, with the silent afterthought of, "But that's not gonna happen."

A little while later she opened her apartment door to find that her assumption was wrong. Plagg's computer sat dark and cold on her coffee table. No sign that he'd come at all. The apartment was silent aside from the dulled noise of her neighbors watching TV, making her place feel _more_ empty. Somehow, Plagg managed to annoy her even more when he was around to actually annoy her. How was that possible?

With a sigh that only added to the quiet, she set her purse down next to his monitor and went to start getting dinner ready. If there was no one to cook for, she didn't see the point in making anything fancy. From her freezer, she dug up one of her microwave meals and popped it in. While her pesto pasta with chicken and spinach heated up, she tried to plan out her night.

It had been a while since she'd played any one player games. That was an option. She still had those bath bombs Marinette had given her for her birthday. A fun idea. The kitchen could always use a cleaning with how much she used it. Not high on her priority list yet.

There were three sharp raps followed immediately by the click of a key opening her door.

Or she could heat up another freezer meal and cream a certain cheese-lover's butt in Ultimate Mecha Strike 3. That was also an option. She smiled.

Tikki went out to greet Plagg, who came in and immediately flopped face first onto her couch.

"I hate meetings!" he wailed.

"That good?" she asked, coming to perch on the arm out his couch, just out of reach of his moping.

"I almost died of cheese withdrawals. Adrien wouldn't let me eat any until after the meeting was over."

"Sounds like it was important. Who were you meeting with?"

He grimaced. "Stockholders or something. If someone told me being an adult would mean this much talking to people, I'd have never grown up."

"And I'm sure science and biology would have listened to you when you told them that," she said, amused at his antics.

"I can be very persuasive when I want to be."

She laughed. "Could I persuade you to play some Ulitmate Mecha Strike 3?"

He perked up at that, standing taller, and grinning for the first time since entering her apartment that evening. "Absolutely. What are we betting?"

"We don't have to bet anything."

"There's not a winner or a loser unless there's actually something at stake."

"You're pride as a gamer?" TIkki suggested with a shrug, she could never think of anything when he suggested they play with stakes.

His gaze wandered around the room as he thought, and she saw it light upon seeing her kitchen. "I know! Loser has to do the dishes."

She eyed the pile that she'd been avoiding just moments before his arrival. That could work. Now she had genuine motivation to beat him. "You're on!"

It was a close fight. Tikki, like her sister, favored the ladybug bot and was pretty freakin' good with it, if she did say so herself. Plagg though, with his cat bot, was also good. Their jeers and shouts of outrage with each success and fail became increasing impassioned, and Tikki even let slip a few words she would have chastised her little sister for. When the first one slipped, she felt her face burn in embarrassment. Her fingers hit the wrong buttons on the controls, letting Plagg attack her in her moment of hesitation.

He let out a bark of laughter. "Come on, Sugar Cube. Don't go soft on me now!"

"Don't call me 'Sugar Cube'," she snapped, her hands retightening their grip on the controls.

"Or what?" Plagg challenged, his bot still wailing on her mercilessly.

She was more focused on regaining her edge that she wasn't even really thinking when her retort slipped out of her mouth. "Or I'll call you Stinky Socks."

Plagg didn't respond immediately. At first, all she heard was a slight sniffle. Alarmed that she might have actually hurt his feelings, she dared to spare a glance to see if he was crying. He was biting down so hard on his lip that it had turned white. Plagg was holding back tears, but it wasn't because he was upset, because in the next second he gave a snort and then the laughs he was trying to hold back burst out.

He cackled in delight. "Stinky Socks! Seriously? You haven't got a mean bone in your body, do you?"

He was laughing too hard to even notice when she mercilessly delivered the killing blow. She hopped off the couch and gave a little victory dance. "Not so nice that I won't take advantage of a distracted player!" she crowed as she twirled around her coffee table.

His laughter died down to just the occasional chuckle as he watched her dance about the room. A look Tikki could only describe as 'content' settled onto his face as he leaned back into the couch, perfectly happy to watch her gloat. She finished her victory dance and flopped onto the couch next to him, breathless and laughing.

"Thanks," she said sincerely, once she had caught her breath.

His brow crinkled in confusion. "For what? I didn't lose on purpose."

"Yeah, but I don't think I've done something so childish and fun since I was a kid."

Plagg stood up with a stretch and made his way into her kitchen to fulfill his punishment as the loser. "Well, that's just sad. I guess we'll have to bring out the kid in you more often."

She followed him in and despite having won, grabbed a towel to help him clean. His comment made her remember her earlier conversation with Manon. "Hey, what did you want to be when you grew up when you were a kid?"

"A superhero," Plagg said as he began to clean the first plate.

"Bet that was a let-down when you realized you couldn't," Tikki said, taking the plate and drying it off with her towel.

Plagg shrugged. "I mean, I don't have super speed or super strength, but one day I helped a friend fix a computer problem and they said I was a tech wizard. Then I thought about how that could be a super power. I guess I still got to be a super hero – I just had to recalibrate how I reached that goal to find a way that didn't involve swan diving into a vat of toxic waste."

Tikki laughed. "Yeah, I don't think that would have ended the way you planned."

"What about you?" Plagg asked as he worked his way through the cutlery.

"What about me what?"

"What did you want to be when you grew up?"

Tikki paused. She really hadn't given an answer to Manon, but Plagg had given a sincere response. Didn't that deserve one in turn? "Don't laugh, alright? I wanted to be a dancer."

He side-eyed her, but didn't laugh. "Why didn't you?"

"I realized that the statistical odds were not in my favor. It's a one in a million chance to make it even if you're good, plus I have two left feet and a fear of being on stage."

Plagg gave a thoughtful hum as he worked his way through a few more dishes. "Left Shark wasn't too great, but everybody loves him."

Tikki blinked at him. "I beg your pardon?"

"Left Shark, from when Katie Perry sang at the superbowl. All the others were doing a synchronized dance for her performance and Left Shark was just out there doing their own thing and became internet famous."

"I'm still not seeing your point."

"You don't have to be good to be famous and you don't have to be famous to be good. If you wanna dance, then dance."

She laughed. "You make it sound so simple."

He shrugged. "I guess I got lucky, getting to be paid to do what I wanted, so pardon my rose-colored lenses."

"Paul Lagg, are you secretly an optimist?"

"Shhhh!" he hissed conspiratorially, ducking down and throwing wild glances about the room. "I have a reputation to protect."

She laughed again, good and hard. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, not caring that the damp towel was leaving a mark on her shirt. After a moment, Plagg joined her and they leaned on each other to keep upright and kept in contact as it tapered off to just the occasional fit of giggles.

"Thank you," Tikki said again as she rubbed her sore stomach.

He blinked at her. "What'd I do now?"

"If you can be an optimist, then I can too," she said, giving him a little hip check as she took a cup from him, "It's nice to have a friend around to get me out of my head. Sometimes I can be hard on myself, so thank you."

He almost dropped the plate he'd been holding in a sudden fit of clumsiness. Even though he ducked his head, she was short enough to clearly see the blush engulfing his face. "Right, what are friends for? Happy to help."

She felt her stomach swoop as she watched him and mentally berated herself _. He's just shy because he's not used to other people paying him compliments_. It seemed the most logical explanation to her, so that's what she kept telling herself for the rest of the night forcing herself to set aside Pollen's whispers in her head in favor of just having a good time for now.

* * *

 **Hope you all enjoyed. Have a great weekend!**


	6. Chapter 6

**So glad to see that people are enjoying this!**

 **Quick message to the anonymous commenter:**

 **Guest- Yup, I had fun debating what his human name would be back in book 2 and it's always super fun to drop tv show references in the story, I feel like it helps tie it back in even though this AU is so different from the real one.**

 **With that let's get on with the story!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Plagg burst into Adrien's office. "Tikki asked me out on a date!"

Adrien dropped the sandwich he was eating. "What?"

"Last A couple nights she asked me to go to Comic Con with her and last night she sent me a text to confirm that I was going. That's a date," Plagg explained.

"That's a hang out at best," Adrien argued as he picked up his lunch up off his desk.

Plagg crossed his arms. "Don't go killing my buzz."

Adrien snorted. "If you like her that much, ask her out on a real date."

He sat down at in front of Adrien's desk, his face straightening as he got serious. "I'm going to wait until after Comic Con to try that. I think we're both using this as an opportunity to test the waters, but I'm not sure."

"Do you want me to ask Marinette?"

"NO!" Plagg said, throwing up his hands in panic. "If you ask her then she'll tell Tikki and then Tikki will _know_ that I like her. If she knows then she'll have to do something about it and I'm not ready for things to change yet."

Adrien blinked. "Are you a child? What kind of backwater thinking is that? I thought you were going to ask her out after Comic Con anyway."

"No, I'm testing the waters at Comic Con to see if she'd say yes. That's a very different mindset going in," Plagg argued.

"You do you, but just a heads up, I'll probably not be able to help much. I'm going to have a lot of my own stuff going on."

"Running around in a cat suit is going to take up your whole weekend?"

"I'm attending panels!" he said defensively. "And this is supposed to be Marinette's big reveal, plus the thing Alya and I are planning-"

"What are you and Alya planning?"

Adrien's jaw snapped shut with a click. "Nothing."

Had he whiskers, they would be twitching. "And what is this nothing?"

"It's nothing."

"Adrien Agreste, are you keeping secrets from me?" Plagg put his hand over his heart in mock offense.

Adrien's hand came up to rub the back of his neck. His eyes were firmly fixed on his desk. "No, of course not."

"Adrien Agreste. You will tell me your secrets, or I will hack your phone and send photos of your last date to every gossip rag I know of," Plagg threatened.

"Look, I want to tell you, but I don't want to jinx anything and you're terrible at keeping secrets. I promise, you'll find out. Especially now that you're coming to Comic Con."

Plagg flopped back in his chair with a pout. "Fiiiiiine. Can I at least get a clue? You know how I am about surprises."

Adrien frowned, fingers steeping as he considered what to say. "If you want to hear it firsthand, come to the skit we're doing in the theater room on that Saturday."

Plagg nodded. "Well, that's going to bug me, but I'll get over it. I'll just take my lunch and go."

"Cheese isn't lunch. It's a snack," Adrien said half-heartedly, as Plagg made his was over to the mini-fridge. "And stop putting your nasty cheese in my fridge."

"I'll stop putting my stuff in your fridge when you stop leaving an open shelf for me." He left, wheel in hand, and made his way back to his office. On his way, he ran into a very familiar little bluenette.

"Marinette! What are you doing here?"

She held up some Tupperware containers. "Adrien left his lunch at home, so I left Tikki in charge for a bit to surprise him. I figured we'd eat together while I was here."

"Must be nice working with family."

Marinette shrugged. "It has its pros and cons, and it's definitely not for everyone, but I enjoy it."

He nodded. "Well, enjoy your lunch. I'm sure Adrien will love the surprise."

She nodded and headed towards Adrien and he started back to his own office when a thought came and he turned to grab her arm. "Wait, how did you get in here?"

Marinette fished through her pocket and pulled out a white card with a picture of her face on it. "Adrien gave me a guest pass. It pretty much just lets me in the building and his office, but it's not like I'll be going anywhere else."

He nodded and they parted ways for real this time. "All right. Have a good lunch."

Later that night, as he made his way over to Tikki's, he stopped by his favorite pizza place and bought a few to take with him. When he reached her place, he popped them in her oven to keep them hot until she got home.

He was midgame when Tikki came stumbling in looking exhausted. He jumped up, letting the Rathian kill him while he stepped over to offer his hand to steady her.

"You okay, Bug? You looked like death warmed over."

She gave him a faint smile. "Marinette left work for a bit, and an angry customer came in while she was gone. They were gone before she came back, but it put us behind on some projects and I find angry people exhausting."

"I think everyone does," Plagg said, helping Tikki over to the couch where she collapsed gratefully.

"Fair enough." She sniffed the air. "Did you cook?"

"I don't cook and you wouldn't want to eat it if I had. I bought pizza on a whim since you're always making me dinner. It felt fair."

Tikki slumped into the couch, finally relaxing. "Thank you. I don't think I have the energy to cook today."

Plagg left and pulled the pizzas out of the oven, grabbing two plates from her cupboard as well before making his way back into the front area.

Tikki's eyes widened in alarm when she saw him. "Why did you get _three_ boxes?"

Plagg shrugged. "I wasn't sure what you wanted. It's fine – whatever you don't eat, I'll just have for breakfast and dinner for the next couple days."

"That's not healthy."

Plagg settled in next to her and laid out the pizzas. "It's probably better for me than just eating a wheel of cheese for lunch, which is what I normally do."

He watched her face in amusement as she looked outraged before her face morphed into an expression of panicked concern, followed by a constipated expression that he couldn't figure out. She was shaking her head at him, which made the little hairs that always stuck up on top of her head wiggled back and forth. He wanted to bat at them or pat her head to watch them squish down before boing-ing right back up. Maybe he just wanted to touch her in general.

He snatched up a random slice of pizza and shoved it in his mouth; his other hand gripped his plate tightly to make sure he didn't act impulsively. Tikki let out a resigned sigh and turned to look at her options before grabbing a vegetable slice and setting it down on her plate, carefully picking off pieces.

"Do you not like any of them?"

"I like vegetables. I just don't like mushrooms."

"I'll eat them if you don't want to," Plagg offered.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Your taste in food is bizarre."

"I prefer to call it refined," he said, holding out his plate so she could dump her mushrooms on them.

"I call it weird."

"I'm eating the food you don't want, so I'd say it's a win-win for both of us."

"Fair. Normally if someone gives me something with mushrooms, I make myself eat them because I don't like letting food go to waste."

"But you were picking them off just now."

"Yeah, I eat them first so I can enjoy to rest of the meal."

He shook his head at her. "Or you could just only eat what you like."

"That would be rude, not to mention unhealthy."

"Eh, I just don't see much of a point in doing something if you don't like it," Plagg said, helping himself to her mushrooms.

"Because it's the right or logical thing to do. Because it's for the greater good. Because it's what's expected of you," Tikki said, looking like a weight had been dropped on her shoulders.

Plagg put his plate down and stared at her hard, waiting for her to look at him too. "Tikki, are you happy?"

Her mouth opened and closed a few times, taken off guard by his question. "Of course I am!"

"Are you? I would say you're content at best. Are you really, honestly happy?"

"You're one to talk, Captain Sourpuss. What brought this on?"

He blushed. Emotions weren't his strong suit, but he'd been the one to start this. "You seem really worn out, and I'm worried about you."

She smiled softly at him. "I just had a bad day, Plagg. It happens. I'll sleep, wake up, and hope tomorrow will be a better one."

He nodded, too uncomfortable to pursue the conversation further. "I'm coming, by the way. To Comic Con."

He'd caught her off guard again, with the topic jump, and he decided that her confused face was adorable, but her smile was still his favorite as she realized what he was talking about and beamed at him. "That's great. It'll be so much fun!"

"Quick question, though."

"Yes?" She cocked her head to the side, and he was momentarily distracted by the urge to reach out and touch her hair again as it waved through the air from the movement.

"Do you know what surprise Adrien has planned for that Saturday?"

* * *

 **What surprise could Adrien possibly have? Any guesses? Let me know what you think!**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey, I was going to try to put a Marinette chapter in here because I was doubting myself on the pacing and worried about having 2 Plagg chapters back to back, but nothing was coming and I was advised to not force it if it wasn't coming. Sorry for disappearing there for a bit. Hope you like this next one. We're back at Comic Con! XD**

 **Quick note to the guest commentor:**

 **MiraculousFAN - Yay! I'm always thrilled when people like the story. Thank you so much. As to your guess about our Sunshine Boy, you will find out this chapter ;)**

 **Alrighty, onward!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug**

* * *

Plagg was not okay.

After a long deliberation over whether or not to wear a costume, he had decided the discomfort at people talking to him outweighed impressing Tikki. He'd gone for simple and comfortable, with a long-sleeved white shirt and some loose, well-worn jeans. So why were people telling him he had a great L costume?!

Who the heck was L? Why did his snarky comments only make people say that he was doing a great character impersonation, and WHY had a guy followed him around saying he needed to find a chair for him to perch on so he could take his picture?!

He just wanted to find Tikki and go to the Miraculous Ladybug presentation. Then, he was seriously considering going home and burning his clothes for having betrayed him so. He found Tikki's booth after a bit of wandering. It was exactly where it had been the day before and the day before that, but he found the artist alley to be a confusing maze. He stopped when he saw her. The first day she hadn't worn a costume, saying it got in the way of setting up the wire racks that made up her booth. The second day she was a sailor scout, which he knew about because Adrien made him watch the first season of Sailor Moon in exchange for a literal crate of camembert (he still wasn't sure that was a fair trade). Today though, she was Queen Amedala in full make-up and the beautiful red dress from The Phantom Menace.

She was Padme and he was a very unworthy Anakin. Her face brightened into a wide smile that creased the red dots on her cheeks when she saw him.

"I was getting worried you were going to be late and I'd have to leave without you."

"I just got a little lost."

"Well, let's go. I left Manon in charge, and Pollen volunteered to help cover as well."

He saw the glittery blond who gave him an enthusiastic wave before Tikki pulled him along to the convention theater room.

There was a line to get in and it was rapidly filling up. Marinette and Alya had been advertising this as their biggest and most important event yet. Tikki walked up to the men guarding the door and held up her convention badge.

"Tikki and Plagg. We should be on the special guest reserved seating."

One of them pulled out their phone and after checking it nodded to them. "You're good to go. Head on in."

They entered amid cries of outrage from everyone behind them. Plagg gave them a cheeky wave before Tikki pulled him inside. "Come on, our seats are actually backstage."

"When did we get backstage seats?"

"Alya arranged it, said she wanted to guarantee we'd have a good seat to see the show. Said it was very important."

"Well, it's not starting for another, like, thirty minutes, right?"

"Yup," Tikki confirmed.

"Then I'm going to work on something for a bit." He slipped his backpack off his shoulders and pulled out a laptop. He was remised to work while hanging out with Tikki, but knew he couldn't let a golden opportunity like this one pass him by.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm going to try to hack into the work system while Adrien is too busy here to counter me."

"What about the rest of the company?"

Plagg shrugged. "They'll be there and working, but they're less likely to be looking for me messing with stuff when they think I'm here enjoying a day off."

"Are you enjoying your day off?"

His cheeks darkened a little, and he paused in his typing to look at her. Some part of his brain was telling him to put the laptop away and just hang out with her, but logically he knew this was going to be his best chance, and he was getting uncomfortable close to his time limit for finding the dummy file. "Yeah, I'm having fun."

They sat in silence for a bit as the doors opened and people began to stream in, taking seats in the amphitheater beyond the curtain.

"What exactly are you doing?"

"I'm using a Kali Linux system to explore multiple hosts and attack vectors to use weaknesses in the existing network security controls to try and find my target."

He saw Tikki cock her head the side. "In a way I can understand, please."

He paused, trying to think of the simplest way to explain. "I can't go in through the front door, so I'm trying to go in through the back, and I'm going to try to find their inventory to find out where they're hiding what I want. From there I'll figure out what I need to do to take it."

"How do you get in?"

"I need a user name and password. The problem is that everyone changed them when the game began."

"Oh," Tikki said.

He glanced over at her nervously, "If I'm boring you, we can talk about something else, or I can just shut up."

"I'll admit I don't understand everything you're saying, but it's not uninteresting. Just a little hard to follow."

They heard running footsteps and both turned to see Marinette rushing towards them in all her red spandex glory. She slid to a stop in front of them, pausing to catch her breath before straightening and putting her hand on her hips indignantly. "Alya only just told me you guys were back here. I'd have been here to welcome you if I'd known."

Tikki waved off her concerns with her hand. "You've got enough on your plate without adding 'hostess' on top of that. You just focus on doing your thing, and we'll be here to watch."

Marinette leaned forward and wrapped her sister up in a hug, twisting awkwardly to avoid the elaborate headpiece. "I'm glad you're here. Both of you. It'll help calm my nerves. We're finally doing it. The big reveal."

Tikki squealed and hugged her little sister tighter. "I'm so proud of you. You've worked so hard for this."

A lithe figure, clad in skin-tight black leather, slipped out from behind one of the shadowed curtains and came to stand behind Marinette, waiting for her to notice him. She did not disappoint. Plagg watched with a smirk as she stepped back from Tikki and right into the man in black and gave a shriek of surprise. Adrien's hands shot out to grab her before she could fall and pulled her close.

"Careful, Bugaboo, now's not the time for you to be falling for me."

"Chat, you scared me half to death!"

"Did you just call him 'Chat?'" Plagg asked.

Marinette nodded. "It's a rule I have. While in costume, behave in costume. People come for an experience, so, like Disneyland, don't break the magic."

"Isn't that what you're doing by telling everyone who you are?"

Marinette's eyes widened, but Adrien wrapped his arms around her before she could spin off into a true panic. "No, this is taking control of the situation before a worse one has a chance to come about."

She relaxed into Adrien, panic averted, and Plagg felt a sharp pinch on his arm. "Ow!" He turned to see Tikki shoot him a glare before turning back to the couple with a smile. "Well, it's about time for you two to go on stage. You better go get ready."

They left, and Plagg scowled at the woman sitting next to him. "What was that for?"

"Don't freak her out; she's been working up to this for months!"

"I wasn't trying to freak her out. I was just asking a question."

Tikki rolled her eyes, but then the lights went out and the crowd went dead silent.

A single spot light came on to reveal Alya striking a pose for the audience. She gave a wink and a wiggly finger wave. "Not who you were expecting, right?"

They laughed, and Plagg watched, appreciating how Alya riled up the crowd and got them properly pumped for Marinette and Adrien – _ahem_ , Ladybug and Chat Noir. She was the secret star of the show who made it all possible so that when Chat Noir back-flipped into the second spotlight, people were jumping on their feet screaming. The other stage lights came back on, and Marinette came out doing yo-yo tricks and a few front flips of her own. Watching them, Plagg could see that all of Adrien's parkour was paying off in his favor fabulously and he guessed Marinette must be into something similar to be able to keep up with him.

Adrien was always a nerd, but here he was in his element and he was a star (of a nerd). Plagg watched this side of his best friend that he'd never seen before. It was showy and Plagg had to admit that he was a pretty good actor. He never would have known without Marinette because she was the one who brought it out of him.

Tikki grabbed his arm, bringing him back to focusing on the present. He hadn't realized he'd spaced out from whatever the skit was doing, but it quickly became apparent why Tikki had a death grip on his arm. Marinette had removed her mask.

The crowd was dead silent, with only Marinette's voice ringing out loud and clear for all to hear. "I'm also Marinette Dupain-Cheng, artist of Miraculous Ladybug!"

Screaming and applauding ensued, and Plagg covered his ears to keep from being deafened.

Adrien whipped off his mask too. "Too clear up any confusion before the rumor mill starts running, I'm Adrien Agreste, her boyfriend."

How was it possible for them to get louder?! Hadn't everyone already been screaming? Plagg watched them wave to the crowd as they waited for them to quiet down. Marinette stood tall and smiled confidently, but from his side angle he could also see that Adrien had a hand on her lower back and was rubbing small circles there with his thumb.

The two walked over to the table where Alya had put herself and leaned on either side of her in front of the table, clearly posing for the cameras. When the crowd finally, FINALLY quieted down, Plagg pulled his hands back down to listen again.

"How's that for a scoop for your ladyblog?" Marinette asked, twirling her mask around, one finger in the eye hole.

"I'm not sure any scoop out there could top that one," Alya said, but she wore a smirk and was looking at Adrien. "Except . . ."

Marinette turned to him with a start, and if Plagg had to guess she was either a very good actress, or they were now off script. Alya whipped out her phone while Adrien pulled Marinette away from the desk and took her to stand on the middle of the stage, keeping her hands firmly in his.

"My Lady, we spent so much of our time like ships passing in the night, just barely missing each other. But now that we're on course and side by side, I don't ever want to let you go." He got down on one knee, and Tikki's death grip returned with a vengeance. "Will you marry me?"

Adrien's back was too them, but Plagg could just feel the big sappy grin coming off his stupid face and watched as Marinette's own eyes filled with tears. She brought a hand to her mouth.

"Oh Kitty, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. YES!"

Adrien sprung up and pulled her into his arms, twirling her around the stage while he laughed. The crowd roared its approval. Plagg could only cover one ear as Tikki's hold on his arm was absolute, and he couldn't have moved it if he wanted to. And he really, really wanted to.

Marinette and Adrien started kissing; Alya popped up with a white piece of cardboard with the word "CENSORED" over the front of it to block the couple's actions from the audience.

"Well, folks, we're out of time. It's time for everyone to clear out. Hope you had fun! Feel free to send me your videos – I might add it into our next post of the ladyblog in a cameo collage. Have fun at the rest of your convention, and keep an eye out for the other panels we have coming up!" She herded the other two off stage with her sign – they had not stopped kissing, and Plagg's side view wasn't blocked by Alya's cardboard, sadly.

The crowd chattered with an excited buzz as people slowly made their way out. Plagg looked over at Tikki, who was looking alarmingly pale and slowly turning his arm numb with her grip. She had clearly been no more made aware of the last act of the show than he had.

"Shall we go congratulate the happy couple?"

She jerked to look up at him, and he winced as she pulled at his arm. She looked down and saw his purple fingers, then released his arm with a muttered, "Sorry."

"Totally fine," he said as he shook his arm out to get feeling back into it. "Are we going to tell them we're happy for them, or do you need a minute?"

Tikki took a deep breath through her mouth and slowly let it out through her nose. "I'm good. Let's go congratulate the happy couple."

* * *

 **For those who don't know L is from Death Note. It's an anime and it's kinda dark so if you're going to google to find out who he is, proceed with caution. He's kinda my personal thoughts on how I think Plagg would look.**

 **I hope you liked it. ^_^**


	8. Chapter 8

**Suuuup! I bring you your next chapter. I hope you like it. Don't be too mad at Marinette you guys. . . or me. I am but a humble writer :P**

 **One of the things in this chapter is based on a true story that happened to me. Points to whoever figures it out!**

 **Quick shoutout to guest reviewers:**

 **Guest- I'm so glad you approved of Padme-Tikki and L-Plagg. I'm also surprised at the number of people that agreed with you!**

 **MiraculousFAN- lols! breathe! You're a sweetheart and made me laugh out loud. Yup, Ladybug and Chat Noir are now engaged. (why did I word it like that?) *walks away whistling innocently* You're gonna need some more tea.**

 **Aaaanyhoodle. Onwards!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

They wove their way through the maze of black curtains backstage until they found Marinette and Adrien with Alya and Nino. Tikki watched Plagg step forward and fist bump Adrien before giving Marinette a thumbs-up.

"Congrats you two."

Marinette beamed. "It went really well. Chat's little skit at the end threw me for a loop, but the crowd loved it."

Alarm bells went off in Tikki's head as she watched Adrien's signature sunshine smile flicker out. Marinette hadn't noticed yet and was still prattling on. "The ring is lovely; I hope you didn't spend too much on a prop. You do realize that now we're also going to have to stage a wedding for Ladybug and Chat Noir or the fans will have a fit. You guys could have warned me you were going to do that. I about had a heart attack and thought it was real."

Alya was face palming. Tikki felt like joining her. Nino had pulled his hat over his face and Plagg looked like he was trying not to laugh. Adrien though, poor Adrien looked sucker punched, like you'd just offered him an all-you-can-eat buffet of cookies then shoved the whole table full of sweets into a toilet.

"You thought it was fake?" he asked weakly.

Marinette's smile faltered. "It was, wasn't it?"

Adrien grabbed her by the shoulders. "My La- no- Marinette, I was perfectly and completely serious."

Marinette's face fell into blank, wide-eyed shock. The only change was her steadily reddening complexion. She finally burst into a stream of incoherent sounds that eventually decoded down to jumbled words. "Marry you me ask. Mean say real? How understand to get? Hot stuff what say. I- you- Ladybug!"

Alya looked exasperated. " _Why_ would you think it was fake? Ladybug and Chat Noir aren't even dating in the comic books, much less anywhere near being engaged!"

"Because it's Comic Con! I thought it was fan service. You've made at least a dozen YouTube videos doing as such. How was I supposed to know?"

Alya looked about ready to strangle her best friend and Tikki felt a slight inclination to join her. Honestly, her sister was denser than gouda.

Dangit! She was hanging out with Plagg too much.

"Maybe the lack of a script or the way Adrien bore his heart to you or maybe that very real rock on your finger?" Alya said dryly, crossing her arms in a frustrated huff.

"I- I- I just-" Marinette looked between all her friend's glossy-eyed and a little panic-stricken. "It was too perfect to be real, so I thought it was fake."

Her words petered off into a groan as she slumped forward against Adrien's chest, though Tikki could just barely make out her first coherent sentence muttered into the leather. "I'm the worst."

Adrien looked like he was fighting between laughing and crying. "I love you just the way you are."

She whined and pressed closer to him, like she wanted to crawl inside his leather suit. Less in the hungry-for-your-body kind of way and more of the I'm-going-to-die-of-embarrassment-just-let-me-disappear sort of way.

"You gonna give him an answer?" Plagg asked, breaking into the moment with all the tact of a steel boot going through glass.

Marinette jerked back, looking between Plagg and the awaiting Adrien. She took a step back and slipped the ring off her finger, handing it back to him. Tikki felt her heart stop. Everyone froze and Tikki watched as Adrien's face crumpled. "Ask me again."

He looked at the ring in his hand in shock for a moment before he grinned and slipped down on one knee once more. Before he could even open his mouth though, Marinette had a finger on his lips.

"After Comic Con. Let this weekend be for Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Plagg snorted. "How does that make any sense? What dual personality disorder do you have that makes this make any sense?"

Tikki rushed up and gave him a swift whack to the back of the head. Really! The man had no tact! Even if a part of her didn't think he was entirely wrong. "I think it's time we took our leave. Congrats on your reveal. The show was amazing. I- I look forward to hearing the good news later." A lump formed in her throat at the last sentence, and she knew she needed to make her getaway before she started crying and made everything awkward.

She hauled Plagg down off the stage, marched herself over to the first open seat, and plopped herself down.

"Why'd you hit me? I- Whoa, are you okay?"

Tikki fumbled through her costume to find some tissues so she could dap at the tears rolling down her cheeks. "I'm fine, just give me a moment."

Plagg came to squat in front of her so he could make eye contact. "Clearly it's not nothing, so it's something."

"It's stupid and petty and I'll get over it," Tikki said as she dabbed at her eyes.

He frowned. "None of this self-sacrificing crap. You're upset. What's wrong?"

Abrasive and direct, but she still felt her heart give a happy squeeze. She gave a sniffly chuckle. "Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired."

He simply sat, waiting.

Tikki sighed. "It's just my little sister is getting married, and I just realized I'm still single and going to die alone."

His mouth opened and closed a couple times like he was trying to figure out how to respond to that before he cleared his throat and used actual words. "I mean, technically, Adrien has to ask her first- again. And considering their penchant for overthinking and coming up with unnecessary, convoluted plans, anything could happen between now and the eventual then."

Tikki gave a watery laugh. "You might be right. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy for them both. I really truly am. It's just- I just- It feels a little like a slap in the face, but I know no one is trying to be mean, so I'm frustrated, but there's no one and nothing to take it out on."

He stood and held out his hand to her. "Let's go."

"To where?"

"My limited experience with women involve my mother and social stereotypes, so we're going to go down to the vendor hall and we're going to shop for a bit."

She let him pull her up and offered a small smile. "If that's the only experience you have with women, you need to get out more."

He slowly pulled his hand back from hers, and shoved both in his pockets. "Never felt much of a need to."

She paused and looked at him with new consideration. Perhaps Pollen was wrong. "Are you gay?"

He came to an abrupt stop. "What? No!"

"It's fine if you are."

He looked absolutely indignant now. "I'm not gay! I like . . . girls." His eyes burned into her and she had a feeling he had meant to say 'you' instead of 'girls'.

She let it go, and they made their way down to the vendor hall in awkward silence. Plagg led the way, at first, leading her over to the comic books and artists where she eyed the various fan art for future costume piece ideas. Eventually she took over in the perusing, showing him what she liked and why. He mostly nodded and listened when she explained fashion, but gave actual input on TV shows when he knew what they were.

It was fun and almost distracting. Not distracting enough that she forgot about her problems, but distracting enough that she didn't notice the increase of Stormtroopers in the area.

She was looking at a Triforce necklace when an uneasy feeling crept over her. When she looked up, six Stormtroopers had surrounded her, all E-11 blasters trained on her.

"Umm. Hello?"

"Queen Amidala, you're coming with us," one of the Stormtroopers said.

She looked around in a panic trying to figure out what was going on and saw, a few feet back, a banner proudly displaying the words "Star Wars LARP 2pm-5pm."

Crap.

"Oh, you think- I'm not- Plagg! Plagg, where are you?" Tikki called as the Stormtroopers began to corral her towards places unknown.

"Over here, Your Highness!"

She whirled to see a very amused Plagg standing on the other side of the isle in front of a lightsaber vendor booth. "Help!"

"Give me a second," he called over his shoulder as he turned his back to her to talk to booth vendor.

"No. Now, Plagg," Tikki called as she was led farther away.

"Be patient."

They were reaching an intersection, and if they turned the corner she would lose sight of him. "Plagg!"

"Almost done," Plagg said, handing over what might have been a credit card to the vendor.

"PAUL!" she cried as the holding cage with six other people in it came into view.

One of the Stormtroopers at her back gave a cry, and she turned around to see a whirlwind of purple, white, and black come into view. Plagg jumped into the middle of the chaos wielding a lightsaber that he hadn't had a minute ago.

The Stormtroopers scattered in the confusion and called for backup from the others guarding the cell. They came to join, trying to subdue the maniac that was her savior, but no one dared get close to his wild strikes. His moves were impossible to predict and while he clearly didn't have skill (he almost decapitated himself twice) he made up for it with extreme enthusiasm.

As the others were distracted, someone who must have been from the other side slipped through and unlocked the holding cell, releasing six more into the madness before even more flooded out of the crowd to join the LARPing free-for-all that had formed.

It was absolute chaos, with her and Plagg at the center of it. Something grabbed her hand, and she bit back a scream when she realized it was just Plagg himself, looking at her with a manic grin on his face. "Ready to run, my queen?"

"Lead the way," she shouted, trying to be heard over the fighting.

He gave a battle cry and pulled to the left, barreling through all their enemies as his lightsaber waved wildly, this time almost hitting her in the face.

One Stormtrooper remained between them and freedom, his gun, which they now knew held Nerf bullets, trained on them. "In the name of the Empire, I command you to halt."

"Not gonna happen, buddy!" Plagg called, whirling his lightsaber. It hit the Stormtrooper in the chest so hard, it bounced off and smacked himself in the face with it on the recoil.

Unphased, he brought his arm up for another strike, and the Stormtrooper dove out of the way for them to finally break free. Plagg cackled madly and called back over his shoulder, "Check your canon. Stormtroopers didn't exist until after Order 66!"

Tikki ran, and the hand that wasn't gripped in Plagg's clutched her headpiece to make sure it didn't go flying off from all the bouncing and jostling. They kept running until they had to wheeze to a halt, then leaned against the wall as they caught their breath.

"Well, that was a thing that happened."

Tikki burst into a fit of giggles and slid down the wall until she was sitting on the ground. Plagg slumped down to join her and waited for her to regain control. "You are an absolute maniac."

He laughed. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"It's an entertaining thing for sure. I can't remember the last time I laughed that hard."

"I'll take it as a good thing, then. And you're smiling again, so it's definitely a win," he said, leaning his head back against the wall as he placed the lightsaber beside himself.

She eyed it with an amused smile, feeling warmth creep up her cheeks at his words. "You know, you could have just gone up to them and explained that we weren't part of their game. They would have let me go."

"Yeah, but I've always wanted a lightsaber, and what's the point of a good one if you're not even going to use it properly. Now, even if I never use it again, I can say I got my money's worth out of it."

"Did you plan that or was it all on the fly?"

"A vague idea involving a lightsaber came into my brain when you wandered into the LARP area, but most of it was by the seat of my pants," he admitted.

She nodded. "Impressive. Do you mind just sitting here for a bit? I think I need to decompress."

"We could go back to my hotel room and chill and. . ." he said, letting the sentence drift off, leaving her own imagination to fill in the blanks.

Unfortunately, the first thing her brain came up with wasn't something she was interested in. "Excuse me?"

She watched as his face turned an alarming shade of red. "To watch TV. Or nap. Or play a video game. Or any other _completely platonic_ , not creepy thing it sounded like just came out of my mouth."

Well, that was adorkable. She felt a rush at affection as she realized just how hard he was trying for her. She reached out and gave him a pat on the knee. "I get what you mean, and I'd love to."

He bounced up like a giddy child and held his hand out to help her up. "Great! Follow me."

She let him help her up and felt herself smiling too. "I like that plan."

* * *

 **Hope you all enjoyed! I had a blast writing this chapter so I hope you all had a blast reading it :) Let me know your guesses as to which part in this chapter actually happened to me XD**


	9. Chapter 9

**Suuuuup! Hey, sorry I died for a bit there. I temporarily resurrected myself to bring you this chapter.**

 **For those who cared I will tell you which part of the last chapter was based off a real thing at the end.**

 **Quick reply to some guest reviewers:**

 **MiraculousFAN- sorry, it was not my intent to try to kill you, I promise. Marinette will not be the problem child this chapter. She's really the only one I can speak for this time around though.**

 **Guest- YAY! I'm glad you like it so much ^_^**

* * *

Plagg paused in his typing to glance over at the woman asleep on his couch. With no one around to see, he let the dopey smile take over his face. She'd taken off her headpiece and was now slumped against the armrest still in full Queen Amidala costume and a few stubborn red hairs poking out of her hair net. There was a white smudge where her cheek was resting on the couch, but he didn't even care about the trouble he knew that would get him in with the hotel for it.

Gosh darnit he was being even more of a sentimental fool than Adrien! Tikki hadn't even given him any indication whether or not she actually liked him.

Well, she said he was interesting. That meant she liked him at least a little bit, right? He ran his hand through his hair in frustration before turning back to the computer which he actually knew he was capable of understanding. Though right now even it was being an enigma to him. If only he could figure out someone's password!

Tikki gave a yawn ending in a little squeak alerting Plagg that she was finally waking back up. She sat up, blinking slowly as she looked around the room. "How long was I out?"

"About a half hour," Plagg replied, turning back to his computer to hide his blush from being caught staring.

"Oh," Tikki said in response, then shuffled over to where he was to sit in the chair next to him and flop to the side so their arms were touching.

Plagg felt every millimeter of contact as his body flushed and all his nerve endings lit up at her proximity. "H-hi." That was about as much as his brain was capable at the moment.

She hummed back at him in what he supposed was a greeting then snuggled in closer. . . and sniffed.

Plagg froze, eyes locked on the petite form that was wrapping her arm around his _. Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? WHAT IN THE NAME OF LINUS TORVALDS WAS GOING ON?! And please in the name of camembert, don't take it away_.

"I'm always surprised when you don't smell more like cheese."

So she _had_ sniffed him and she made it sound like she'd sniffed him before. What the heck was he supposed to do with this information?!

Tikki seemed oblivious to his internal melt down and blinked blearily at his computer screen. "Whatcha doin'?"

Right, computers. He could do computers. "I'm using a system called John the Ripper to try and figure out one of my coworkers' passwords."

"Whose?"

"Anyone's at this point. I just need to get in."

Tikki yawned and let go of his arm to stretch them over his head. Plagg wanted to whine at the loss of contact. "Why don't you try Adrien? It should be easiest since you know him best."

"I've already tried all of his usual ones and anything else I could think of about him but none of it's worked."

"Then try stuff about Marinette. Almost everything they do lately seems to be about each other," Tikki said.

Plagg froze as an idea formed in his mind. No. Surely not even Adrien was that cheesy. Still, it was worth a shot. He typed a few phrases into the program and let it run. Tikki watched with tired interest as the numbers and letters ran down the screen.

"Can you keep up with this?" Tikki said, pointing to the computer.

"If I focus, but it'll make my eyes hurt trying to read something moving that fast."

"That's impressive. I can barely catch a word or two."

"Well your sewing is impressive. I don't remember if I told you before, but your dress looks amazing," Plagg said, feeling emboldened by the earlier cuddles.

In response Tikki's hand flew to her face as her eyes widened in panic. "Crap, I bet I totally ruined my make-up!"

He watched her rush over to the mirror and groan as she took in her smeared cheek. "Anything I can do to help?" he offered, getting up and surreptitiously picking up his backpack and draping it over the stain she'd made on the couch before walking over to stand beside her. He didn't want her upset over anything else.

"No thanks. I keep a touch-up kit in my sleeve. Oh no, I got it all over you," she said reaching into one of her sleeves to pull out a compact container, than placing it on the counter to grab a tissue from the hotel supplied box.

"It's no big deal, it's just face paint, right?"

"Still though, I'm sorry," Tikki said as she wiped him clean with quick, efficient strokes before turning back to her own face once done.

Plagg went back to his computer while he wouldn't say he entirely got the point of cosplaying, he knew that anyone with that intense of a concentration face aught not be disturbed and he didn't want her to think he was creepy for just staring at her. So instead he watched her reflection in his computer screen, smiling to himself as she made faces at herself in the mirror.

His computer beeped to let him know the program was done running and when he focused on the actual screen a grin spread across his face. "I'm going to mock you so hard next time you're at work, Adrien," he whispered, before shouting, "Tikki you're a genius!"

She squeaked and turned around. "What I'd do?"

"Your suggestion for Adrien's password. It worked."

She cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Huh?"

"Guess what it is? Just guess!"

Her confused face slipped into an amused smile. "What?"

"It's a variant of 'marry me Marinette'. I never would have even guessed it because I didn't know he was going to ask her until today. That sentimental crapper!"

Tikki laughed. "Yeah, that sounds like Adrien, and I'm sorry, but I'm glad I'm not the only one that was out of the loop."

Plagg grinned. "It's fine, we both thought it was just them getting ready for Marinette's big reveal."

"Clever way to hide a secret by pretending it's another secret," Tikki said, coming over to sit on his couch once more.

Plagg laughed, turning back to his screen to start wrecking his havoc now that he was in. After a few searches, he was pretty sure he'd found it. After all, they didn't have any ongoing or past projects labeled "Big Cheese". Cocky punks were messing with him!

"Got you!" he hissed victoriously.

Tikki got up from the couch, curiosity getting the better of her, and came to sit beside him once more. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

Before he could answer her phone dinged. When she looked down at it she frowned.

"Do you need to leave?" Plagg asked, heart sinking a little.

"Yeah, Pollen says she needs a break and I don't want to leave Manon there by herself. I'll go so you can finish this."

"No, no. It's fine. Now that I've found it I can retrieve it at any time, let me walk you over there."

She smiled at him and he felt his heart squeeze a little. Gosh, this love thing was getting worse. If it progressed any further he would have to tell her.

She put her headpiece back on and he put his laptop back into his bag, grabbing a shirt out of his suitcase to throw over the stain while Tikki was distracted with her elaborate wig. They left together and walked in silence all the way down to the main floor, and all the way back down to the vendor hall.

"I'm sorry but I've got to ask something. What did I say earlier that made you figure out what Adrien's password was?" Tikki asked.

Plagg frowned. "You don't remember?"

Her face flushed enough for him to see it through her makeup and she looked down playing with the hem of her sleeve. "I take a long time to wake up and Marinette's told me I can be quite. . . entertaining. Please tell me if I said or did anything weird."

Plagg came to an abrupt halt. "You. . . weren't. . .awake?"

"Oh no. I _did_ do something weird, didn't I?"

She was asleep when she'd cuddled him. She was asleep when she'd said those things. She'd been ASLEEP! How was he supposed to interpret that?! Did she like him or was she just that way with everyone? What was he supposed to do with this information?

Tikki was still fretting beside him. "Plagg? Plagg, what did I do? Whatever it is I'm sorry."

"All you did was mention how Adrien and Marinette are obsessed with each other," Plagg said monotonously while his brain still tried to process.

"I don't believe you. You wouldn't be acting this weird if that was all I'd done."

Plagg didn't get a chance to come up with a response before Pollen came barreling over and wrapped Tikki up in a hug. "Thank you! I'm sorry I interrupted your date, but you know how I am about sitting still."

Her what now? This was a date? An actual date!

Tikki swatted her friend away. "Oi. Don't go making things more than they are. We were just hanging out."

Pollen laughed and took off, waving good bye before rounding a corner.

Tikki turned back to Plagg and frowned. "Are you alright? Your face is turning a funny color."

"I'm getting a bit of a headache." It was mostly true. His brain throbbed from trying to figure out how to deal with this new info. This is why he didn't hang out with people.

Tikki stepped forward, her face the picture of concern with her brows drawn and her lips pulled down in a pouty frown as she examined him. "If you weren't feeling well, you should have stayed in your hotel room."

"It wasn't so bad before."

"Well you better go back and lay down now before it gets worse. Do you need me to get you painkillers or anything?"

"I should be fine," he muttered, "I'll have everything I need back at the room."

Her frown deepened, but she let it go. "All right, but call me if you need anything. It'd be sad if you spent the whole rest of the convention curled up in a ball in your room instead of out here having fun."

He nodded, even as the source of all his trouble, she still tried to make everything better. It was infuriatingly adorable. "I'll let you know, but I probably just need to sleep for a bit."

They turned and went their separate ways, Tikki the last few yards to her booth and Plagg began his long trek back up to his room for some much-needed solitude. He might actually sleep. It didn't sound like a bad idea. He might also go bang his head against a desk until he couldn't think anymore. Both sounded like very appealing options.

* * *

 **Alright, Story Time-**

 **Once upon a time, I went to my very first Comic Con all by myself. I got a bit lost and accidentally wondered into a Star Wars LARP. I don't know why they thought I was part of their game as I was dressed as an obscure Naruto character, but I got kidnapped and put in jail. Sadly, I did not have a Plagg to bail me out. I lured the stormtrooper guard over with an offering of gummy fruit snacks and explained to him that I really wasn't a part of this and would very much like to go to the Vic Mignogna Q &A starting in 5 minutes. They apologized and let me go, though in the confusion someone from the other team did come up and free three of their guys that were also in the prison with me.**

 **For those of you who guessed the lightsaber fight, you're kind of also right. I'm married and when my husband and I were planning our wedding he was very adamant that he didn't want to do a first dance together because he really hates dancing. I accepted this, but still wanted to do something couple-y and my sister jokingly suggested we do a sword fight instead. That eventually morphed into a lightsaber fight and so that's what we did in place of a first dance (relationships are all about communication and compromise). After our "dance" my sisters came out with buckets of dollar store lightsabers and we handed them out to all the children and just had a free-for-all. It was pretty fun.**

 **Well, that was enough overshare from me. Hope you all enjoyed the chapter!**


	10. Chapter 10

***peeks in* *bows repeatedly* I'm very sorry that this took so long. At least it's a good chapter (I hope). Hope you all enjoy this!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Tikki was facing the rush that happened during the temporary lull in panels. The lull came from most of them prepping for the evening activities. She was working on autopilot with helping clients, but any time she had a moment to herself, her mind was on Plagg. It was driving her nuts.

On one hand, he was fun and thoughtful (when he tried), and his out-of-the-box way of thinking never ceased to entertain her. On the other, he was carelessly rude and socially oblivious at times. Then there was whatever her half-awake brain must have said that made him start acting weird. She was absolutely certain something must have happened but was starting to wonder if it might be for the best to play along with Plagg and pretend that whatever happened, hadn't happened.

"URGH!" Tikki shoved the last of the restocking supplies onto the shelves with enough force to knock off some of the items sitting at the end.

Manon glanced over at her boss's exasperated scramble. "You doing okay over there?"

"Fine," Tikki snapped.

"That is the least fine 'fine' I've ever heard in my life," Manon commented as she checked out another customer.

Tikki took a breath to calm down and remind herself that she wasn't mad at Manon. When she thought about it she wasn't really mad at Plagg or even herself. She was just tired with tiptoeing around him. She let out a heavy sigh. "I'm fine. Just tired and maybe a little frustrated."

"Men," Manon said with a sage shake of her head.

Tikki side-eyed the teen. "What do you know about dating?"

"More than people give me credit for. For example, am I wrong or right that you're frustrated because of a guy?"

"Right, but that doesn't mean I want to talk about it."

Manon shrugged. "All right then. I say you should just ask Plagg out. What's the worst that could happen?"

"I didn't say anything about which guy it was. For all you know, I'm talking about Adrien and Marinette's engagement."

Manon raised an eyebrow of disbelief. "Are you?"

"You know, has anyone ever told you that saying about curiosity and cats?"

"Did you hear that satisfaction brought it back?" Manon countered.

"You've been hanging out with Adrien too much."

Manon laughed. "That guy has more bad dad jokes than my dad."

"Did you hear the one about where cats go when they die?" Tikki asked, jumping on the topic change.

"Purr-cat-tory!" they both exclaimed.

They spent the next couple of hours punning back and forth between dealing with customers, repeating all the ones they'd heard Adrien tell them until the announcer came on through the intercom to remind everyone that it was almost time for artist alley to close for the day. Both breathed a sigh of relief.

"Are you going to the dance tonight?" Manon asked.

Tikki gave a tired laugh. "I don't know how you have the energy to still stand, much less dance."

Manon grinned. "The power of youth and unholy amounts of caffeine."

"I'm not _that_ old," Tikki grumbled, cleaning up the shelves that had gotten disorganized since she turned her back on them.

"If you're not going, do you think you could help me with my hair so I'm not late?"

"Sure thing."

Which was how Tikki ended up dancing around Manon with a curling iron, trying to not burn off her ear. "Would you stop moving?"

"I'm trying to fix my eyebrow."

"You're about to lose an eyebrow if you don't stop moving," Tikki said with exasperation as she tried to hold the curling iron steady while Manon leaned forward with a makeup brush, making tiny strokes to reshape her eyebrow. Tikki was having flashbacks of helping Marinette get ready for school dances. It was frazzling and frustrating, but she couldn't deny the energy of excitement in the air.

Manon was wearing the dress she'd been working on, a sparkling ensemble of pink glitter and white accents, most notably the white diamond on her chest and the butterfly mask on her face—like if the Pink Ranger and a butterfly had an elegant baby. Tikki was endlessly proud of her little protégé.

Tikki turned off and unplugged the curling iron before setting it in the sink. "There, all done!"

Manon turned her head this way and that to examine the final look of the swirling up-do. She'd left little curls to cascade down – a trick she'd learned years ago helping Marinette look fancy. Her lips were a hot pink to match her dress. While it was loud to look at, Tikki had to admit that it was well made. Manon was certainly learning. She felt a wave of affection for the girl she'd known so long.

Her heart felt another pang at the reminder of time marching on, whether she was ready or not. She pushed that away and leaned forward to hug Manon.

"You look amazing, and your sewing has really improved too!"

Manon positively glowed under the praise. "I couldn't have done it without you."

"Naw, you'd have figured it out eventually. Now, get going. You don't want to be late."

Manon laughed, grabbing her purse and convention pass before throwing their hotel door and letting out a shriek of surprise.

Tikki grabbed the curling iron for a weapon and rushed over to seek what was wrong and saw a cowering Plagg and Manon clutching her chest.

"Great Mjolnir, you gave me a heart attack!" Plagg cried, coming up from his crouch.

"I gave you a heart attack? I wasn't the one lurking outside someone else's door!" Manon shouted, putting her hands on her hips.

"I was about to knock!" Plagg shot back.

Tikki could see that their neighbors across the hall had popped their heads out to see what the commotion was. She stepped forward. "The party, Manon. You don't want to be late."

Manon bit her lip and looked between Tikki and Plagg. "I can wait a minute."

Tikki waved the curling iron, still clutched in her hand, at the younger girl. "Shoo. Shoo. Go have fun."

Manon laughed and danced out the door. "All right, but I want details when I get back tonight!"

Plagg went red at that, but Tikki made herself stay focused on Manon until she watched her disappear down the hall. Other hotel guests had opened their doors as well and were watching with expressions ranging from amused interest to plain annoyance. Tikki turned back to Plagg who was now wringing his hands anxiously. She made one last glance down the hall at her nosy neighbors before grabbing Plagg by the wrist and pulling him inside.

"Come on, I'm sure you came here for a reason."

He let her pull him inside, uncharacteristically quiet. She frowned at his pale complexion and the fact that even his wringing them couldn't hide the fact that his hands were shaking.

She led him over to the couch. "Are you all right?"

"Is something burning?" he asked, ignoring her question as he sniffed at the air.

She held up the curling iron, "I did Manon's hair."

"And burned it?"

"That's just what hair smells like when you heat it up," Tikki said as she returned the curler to the sink.

"Huh," Plagg said, finally sitting down on the couch.

Tikki came to sit beside him, watching what she could only perceive as a meltdown as Plagg stared at his hands with the intensity to light them on fire. "You going to tell me what's going on?"

"I was never good at tact," Plagg blurted.

Tikki had no response to that so she sat and waited for him to get his thoughts in order. Clearly, something was eating at him.

Plagg got up and started to pace. "Words and people in general were never my strong suit. Adrien complains that I'm either too blunt or I use too much sarcasm. I never really thought that was a problem, until now. I just don't know what words to use."

Tikki's eyes never left him as he paced back and forth. Her jaw dropped ever so slightly as her brain started piece together what was happening. A flutter filled her belly and she felt a tingle down her spine. The whole thing felt surreal. Subtly as possible, she reached over and pinch her own arm. Yup, definitely awake.

"Everything was fine. I was content to just to leave things as they were, but then things kept happening, and you were just too adorable. And then there was this afternoon!"

"What did I do this afternoon?" Tikki asked quietly, an entirely different heat flooding her cheeks and neck.

He ran his hands through his hair making it stick up at odd angles. Between that and his pacing he looked like a panicked cat. "You snuggled me!"

She'd guessed that much from remembering the makeup on his arm. What had she been thinking? She must have weirded him out.

"And then you nuzzled me and told me you were always surprised that I smelled good. Like you'd sniffed me before!"

 _What?_ Tikki wanted to fall through the floor in embarrassment, but she couldn't get her apology out because now Plagg was on a roll and he wasn't stopping.

"I'm not going to lie, I kinda liked it-"

 _What._

"- and I was getting hopeful. Then you went and said that sometimes you do weird stuff when you're asleep so now I don't know if you meant it. I've been tearing my hair out over this. Finally, I decided that I just needed to talk to you and say what I came here to say." He stopped in his pacing and took a big breath before finally meeting her gaze for the first time in his entire rant. His eyes practically glowed green in their intensity. Tikki felt her breath hitch as the full force of it was focused on her. "I like you. A lot. I'd very much like to know what you think of me."

Tikki's whole body was burning. She understood why Plagg was pacing; her whole body was buzzing with energy. She felt nerves as she tried to work up the courage to give her answer – and he'd been the one to speak first!

All Plagg's courage left him then, his gaze dropping down to his shoes like they had just become the most miraculous thing in the room. Therefore, he couldn't see her smile.

"Paul, I like you too." Her voice was barely above a whisper, but Plagg jumped like she'd shouted.

His gaze snapped back up to her. "What?"

"I like you too," she said, louder this time with more surety as the words left her a second time.

Plagg wobbled where he stood and Tikki shot up to catch him, tripping over her own feet in her rush, causing her to crash into him. They grabbed at each other in an attempt to stay upright. After wobbling for a bit, they stabilized. Tikki looked up and realized she was quite thoroughly entangled with Plagg. Her arms were around his waist and his hands had a firm grasp on her elbows. Their chests were pressed so close that she could feel Plagg's erratic heartbeat and the rapid rise and fall of his stomach with every breath he took.

Plagg's grasp tightening on her elbows brought her back to her other senses. "I'm sorry, did you say you liked me back?"

The heat intensified and flooded her cheeks before pouring into the rest of her face. Still, she managed to maintain eye contact when she replied. "Yes, I did."

He released her elbows to smother her in a hug, which did finally throw them off balance and they toppled to the floor.

Both gave cries of alarm and Plagg immediately began a mantra of "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Tikki couldn't take the ridiculousness of it all and burst out laughing. The shaking beneath her reminded her that she'd landed on top of Plagg, but both were currently too busy laughing to care.

As their chuckles died down, Plagg's arms reached up to wrap around her and hold her in place.

"So, I'm not crazy and didn't just hallucinate when I fell just now. You said yes, right?"

Tikki buried her face in his chest to hide from his gaze. It was making her heart beat way to fast. "Yes, I said 'yes', all right?"

He squeezed her tighter for a moment before lightening back up to a gentle hug, and she found that she found herself quite comfortable in his embrace. "It's just, I've been agonizing over this for _forever_ and then you just go and say yes and now I don't know what to do."

She propped her head up on her hands so she could better look at his face. "I could say no if that makes it easier for you." She made as if to get up.

His arms tightened once more keeping her pressed against his chest. She didn't fight back. "No, thank you. Just give me a minute to process this."

She resettled herself so she was more comfortably laying against him. He simply stared at her, the wonder in his eyes shining and the grin on his face getting dopier and dopier by the second. Her cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling back, but she felt no desire to stop.

"Hey, can I ki-"

"I forgot my pho- . . . ne." Manon came bursting in as an absolute killjoy whirlwind and froze when she saw what was undoubtedly and very compromising position. What with Tikki laying on top of Plagg in the middle of the hotel floor and all.

Tikki shrieked and rolled off Plagg who was too shocked to stop her. "Manon! I- um- this is-"

Manon held up a hand to cut her off. "I don't care, and I don't have time, just please be done doing whatever you're doing before the dance ends tonight and please don't do it on my bed."

With that she was gone just as quickly as she came, taking the mood with her.

Plagg got up off the floor with a groan and made his way over to the couch to collapse on there. Tikki was still frozen in mortification on the floor. He watched her with concern.

"You okay there, Bug?"

"Y-yeah. That just wasn't how I was planning on everyone finding out."

He shrugged. "Saves us the trouble of having to tell them."

"Aren't you embarrassed?" she asked incredulously.

He shrugged. "I mean, yeah, but it's not like I can do anything about it and honestly, I'm too happy to care."

She sat up and stared at him. His cheeks and the tips of his ears looked pink, but he still had a small smile, and his knees kept bouncing with a nervous energy like he could barely contain himself. Honestly, who could be nervous or embarrassed in front of this dorky, puppy of a man?

She got up and sat near him on the couch. "All right, if I'm not dying of mortification, what should we do then?"

"Uhhh, oh, I know," Plagg pulled out his phone and opened the screen. "I was reading these articles on dating advice, and there's this one with a list of suggested questions to ask each other."

Tikki cocked her head and blinked at him. "You read dating advice articles?"

Plagg's cheeks went from light pink to scarlet. "It's a more recent pastime of mine. I thought it might be useful. Just in case."

He'd been reading them in case she said yes, she realized. "You really are a secret optimist," she mused. She leaned in to snuggle against his arm.

He blushed but didn't deny it.

"Well it looks like 'just in case' has come. Read away."

He started reading the first question, and they spent the rest of their evening together like that, curled up on the couch like a couple of content cats. Tikki found she rather liked it.

* * *

 **Once again, I'm very sorry that this took so long. I only went through half of my editing process this time to get it out, so I apologize now for mistakes. Still though, at least now we can get into some fluff right? At least, as much fluff as Plagg is capable of :P**


	11. Chapter 11

**Hi! I'm not dead yet. Have a thing!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Plagg was on cloud nine. She had said yes! Against all odds, she'd said yes! That being said, he really wasn't sure where to go from here. Comic Con was now over. Which had been like an entirely different world. Surreal in just about every aspect. Now it was over and he was still (by some miracle) still dating Tikki. That brought them up to a grand total of three days!

He looked up at the clock and breathed a sigh of relief to see it was finally five o'clock. He barely took the time to turn off his computer before he was out the door. There were a few things he needed to do, and he wanted to make sure to get it all before Tikki finished her shift. He wanted to get there before her.

The speed limit may have been a little overlooked as he went about grabbing all the necessary things. Everything needed to be perfect.

When he reached her apartment, there was a large package outside. Plagg put his stuff down first then went back out to lug it inside to make sure it didn't get stolen. Then he got to work putting up pink and gold streamers, turning on a romantic playlist, sprinkling confetti over the coffee table and floor, setting up the dinner he'd bought, and then – in case she was mad about the confetti – he did her dishes. Everything was done. All he had to do now was sit still and wait for her to show up. Which he did with the most impatient of leg wiggles.

When he heard the door unlock he jumped to his feet, ready to greet her.

Tikki's jaw dropped as she took in the front room of her apartment. "Plagg! What did you- How did you-"

"You said for our first date you wanted something simple and stay at home, but we do that all the time already so I thought I'd do something to make it stand out a little more."

She stepped in, letting the door swing shut behind her. "It's definitely standing out. Wow. That's a lot of streamers."

"Too much?"

Tikki nodded. "Maaayyybe just a little."

His shoulders slumped in defeat and she came forward to give him a hug and a peck on the cheek. "I love it. You listened and you tried, so I love it."

"Really?" he asked, nuzzling into the top of her head.

"Really really. Now let's eat; something smells amazing."

He escorted her over to the couch and sat her down with a flourish. "Thank you. I did the finest card swiping in all of Paris."

"Do you seriously not know how to cook?" she asked incredulously.

"Not even a little bit. You're welcome to try to teach me, but I will warn you that I once burned water."

Tikki's eyes bulged. "How?"

Plagg shrugged. "I'm blessed with the curse of being chaos incarnate."

"I have to see this for myself. Next time, we're cooking together."

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you," he said, thrilled that they were all ready planning next time.

They ate in comfortable silence for a while, Tikki giving little hums of happiness as she tried each new food on the plate. When she finished, he picked up her plate for her and grabbed his own empty plate as well.

She trailed along behind him. "I can take care of my own dishes, you know."

"Nope, you don't like doing them so I took care of them for today," he said as he started scrubbing the few that he'd just brought in.

Tikki gasped a little at the empty sink. "Did you do all my dishes?"

"Yup," he said, letting the "p" pop at the end. When did such menial chores start giving him such a sense of accomplishment? He felt Tikki come up and hug him from behind. Oh. When she started doing things like that, that's when.

He finished cleaning the dishes and dried his hands off, then turned around to offer them to her. "Dance with me?"

"Oh, um." Tikki looked down, her cheeks turning an adorable pink.

"You don't have to if you don't want to. I just thought you might like to."

With shy, slow hands Tikki reached out to place her hands in his. "Do you know any steps?"

"Just a basic square waltz," he admitted.

She stepped closer so their chests brushed and they fell into step. "I guess I'll have to teach you then."

"This to do list is getting longer and longer," Plagg said, a rare, soft smile slipping out as he gazed at her face.

"We can take our time going through it," Tikki murmured, leaning closer.

Plagg's eyes drifted shut as he leaned in as well.

A phone went off shattering the moment. Tikki jumped back and went to grab it while Plagg tried not to let out a growl of frustration.

He could hear some kind of squealing noise coming from her phone and silently hoped whoever was on the other end was getting run over by a truck.

"Woah, woah, woah. Slow down and start over," Tikki was saying, gesturing to the air like whoever she was talking to was right in front of her instead of on the phone.

Plagg came over to stand next to her.

"It's Marinette," she mouthed to him.

He nodded and begrudgingly lowered his run-over-by-a-car wish to a I-hope-your-internet-runs-slow-tomorrow wish.

Tikki gasped, drawing his attention back to her. "Repeat that again."

She turned her phone on speaker and held it out to Plagg. "I said, Adrien just proposed to me!"

Tikki squealed. "I'm so happy for you!"

"That's great," Plagg said, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Adrien had already asked her once before and she knew this was coming. Sure, he was happy for her and Adrien, but he also thought that the two of them made lives unnecessarily complicated with their dual identity existence. They were less of a couple and more like a weird four-way love square. Still, if it made his best friend happy, he wasn't going to judge. Much.

"Is that Plagg?"

"Yeah," they both said.

"Oh my gosh, are you two on a date? Did I interrupt something?"

"No, you're good," Tikki said before Plagg could tell her yes.

He felt his lip drop in a pout, and Tikki reached out to take his hand in hers. Gosh darnit, why did that make it feel better?!

Tikki was listening to Marinette give her the play by play of how Adrien proposed (this time) and Plagg zoned her out in favor of doing something he'd been fighting the urge to do for a long time – play with her little antenna flyaways.

It started with just a flick every couple of seconds, but Tikki completely ignored him. That brought out his competitive side so he started taking it progressively farther to see how much it would take to get a reaction out of her. First with the two finger flicks (no reaction), then he tried swatting it with his hand (no reaction). His next move was to blow on the hairs (eye-twitch, but not a big enough reaction for him to call it quits), and finally he went for full out squishing them down with his palm and watching them boing up again (by far his favorite and the one that finally got her attention).

"Okay, well, I don't want to keep you away from Adrien any longer so I'll let you go. We can talk more tomorrow."

"All right. I'm just- gahhh- I'm so excited and I had to share it with someone."

Tikki laughed. "Okay, you've shared, now go affection that fiancé of yours."

"Fiancé!" Marinette squealed.

Tikki laughed once more and hung up before turning to glare at Plagg, grabbing his hand mid-boing. "And just what do you think you're doing?"

The one-eighty on her attitude gave him emotional whiplash and he had to blink for a bit to get his bearings. "I was booored and you two were taking forever and I felt left out."

"So why not just play on your phone or something while you waited for me to finish up the conversation?"

Plagg looked at the ground, feeling his face start to burn. "Because I've really wanted to touch your hair for a while, and once I started I couldn't stop myself."

He must have said something right because her grip on his hand lessened enough for him to take it back. The next words came out much softer. "Oh Plagg. Still, can you wait to do that until I'm not on the phone? It's very distracting."

Plagg nodded, his lungs refilling once he realized he hadn't permanently messed this up. "Noted. So, when am I allowed to play with your hair?"

Tikki thought for a moment. "For now, I'm just going to say when we're cuddling."

Plagg felt a spark of his usual mischief return. "Okay, would you like to cuddle and watch a movie right now?"

To his ever-growing joy, she laughed. "Sounds good. Just let me change into pajamas because there's a pretty good chance I'll fall asleep if we do."

He turned off the playlist he'd had going and settled into the couch, delighted that she still found it in her heart to like him even when he was being impulsively annoying and weird.

* * *

 **As an apology, I'll try to get you an extra chapter real quick!**


	12. Chapter 12

***claws way up from the ground* I liiiiiive! Here's the next chapter. Sorry I've sucked. I'll try to do better... which I've said before and didn't so I guess the only way to prove it now is to actually act. I've been very busy adulting and stuff (which is not the same as adultery[MOM] sorry my mother listened in on a conversation with my siblings and very much misunderstood what I was saying). Anyway, I'm rambling. Hope you enjoy this!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug**

* * *

Tikki felt something uncomfortable and lumpy beneath her, but something delightfully warm behind her that had molded itself to her back. She snuggled into it, but went rigid when it snuggled back.

She opened her eyes and looked down to see an arm that was decidedly not hers draped over her waist. Riiiight. Her brain was waking up, and she remembered that they'd watched a movie after gaming last night and must have both fallen asleep. Tikki relaxed once more and let herself enjoy the cuddles. At least, she tried to, but then her phone went off and she felt Plagg begin to move and wake as well.

Stupid phone. Stupid work. Stupid responsibility that dragged her out of his arms as she reached to where her phone sat just out of reach on the edge of the coffee table. She turned it off, but the moment had been ruined. _Ah well_ , she assured herself, _there would be other moments_.

Her heart warmed at the thought. When she first met him she'd have laughed at anyone who told her she'd be looking forward to the moments spent with Plagg, but she could now see them quickly becoming her favorite moments in her life. That surprised her, but she wasn't scared by the realization.

She was a little shocked with how quickly Plagg's eyes snapped open and he shot straight up on the couch. He looked at her and then down at the spot where she'd been resting moments before and then back up at her again.

"I'm sorry," he blurted.

Tikki blinked, her tired brain having difficulty processing. "For what?"

"For sleeping over without permission."

Tikki laughed and stumbled her way into the kitchen to make herself some tea. "It's not like you cared about me inviting you into my house before." When Plagg didn't respond she thought over what she'd said and winced. "I mean, I didn't kick you out and I had plenty of opportunities to do so." Still not what she meant. She turned to face him where he hadn't moved from the couch, now looking pink in the face. "Sorry, what I'm trying to say is it was...nice," she hesitated just a moment before adding, "and I wouldn't mind doing it again sometime."

His face went from pink to scarlet as his head shot up to look at her. A strangled whine came out of his throat. Tikki was pretty sure she broke him and returned to her original quest of retrieving caffeine. Maybe that would fix him. It would certainly help her and her no-filter-morning-brain.

Caffeine obtained, Tikki returned to the couch and offered a mug of tea to Plagg who chugged it before wrinkling his nose. "Do you have any coffee?"

"Nope. Just tea, but I can get some later."

He nodded. "That would be appreciated. Not that tea's not good and not that I don't like your cooking."

"Plagg, it's fine. You're allowed to not like tea."

He relaxed visibly and took another gulp from the mug.

"I'll just think you're insulting my culture and everything I stand for."

Plagg choked and Tikki burst out laughing, giving him hearty pats on the back until he stopped coughing.

"You're lethal in the morning, Bug," he wheezed once he'd caught his breath.

"Sorry. Sorry. I'll leave you to drink your tea in peace," she said cheerily, getting up and heading to the kitchen to get breakfast going. There was enough time to make some chocolat chaud that would go great with croissants and a side of fresh berries. She didn't have a tray so she made do with a cookie sheet and loaded it up with enough breakfast for two.

Plagg had pulled out his laptop and was typing away. He looked up when she came in, then did a double take.

"Did you make me breakfast?" he asked breathlessly.

"Yes. Is that a problem? Do you need to leave for work?" She looked down at the food worriedly and tried to think if she had a container she could put the chocolat chaud in other than the shallow bowls in which they already resided.

"No, I'm fine. I've got some time. I just wasn't expecting you to, is all."

She set the tray on her coffee table and helped herself to her portion. Plagg was typing furiously, and while his eyes never left the screen, one hand snaked out and grabbed a strawberry from his fruit bowl.

She glanced over, but couldn't interpret the lines of code scrolling across his screen. "What are you working on?"

"Remember that Red vs Blue thing I told you about?"

"The digital capture the flag your work is doing. I remember," Tikki said with a nod.

"Well, I was, umm, distracted by recent events and forgot to log in and grab the flag. I figured I would do that now so I could rub it in Adrien's face at work."

Tikki let out an amused hum as she dipped her croissant into her bowl of warm chocolate soup. "That's a dangerous level of competitiveness."

"I just don't like to lose."

She was surprised his skin didn't start to crack and peel- so dry was the stare that she gave him. "That's the definition of competitiveness."

"Yeah, well I happen to- CURDLESS CHEESE BOWLS!"

Tikki jumped at his sudden expletive. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It's a roving file!"

Tikki cocked her head in confusion. "What?"

Plagg pointed an accusatory finger at his computer screen. "They programmed the file to randomly jump from one computer to another. I lost it!"

"Oh. Um. That's not good. Do you know how to get it back?"

Plagg threaded his fingers through his hair and began to pull erratically. "Theoretically yes. I just don't have the time!"

He was freaking out, about a half step away from a meltdown. A Marinette sized one at that. Gently, she grabbed his face and pulled his eyes away from the screen until they locked on with her. "Breathe. That's it. Look at me and breathe. Now, when you've calmed down I want you to explain. Talk to me, Plagg. Let me help."

"I don't need-" he started automatically, before he deflated with a sigh and slipped through her fingers to thump against her collar bone. "Okay, maybe I need a little help."

"What do you need me to do?"

His mop of bedhead tickled against her neck as he shook it. "You can't help me. You've got to go to work."

She let her fingers start to card through his hair, watching his shoulders lower slightly as she did so.

"So the system log shows that the folder with the file was moved. I don't know how often or when this happens, so to get the file back I have two options: Option one, I try to hack everyone's computer individually and hope I don't get caught in a game of monkey in the middle as the file jumps from computer to computer. These guys are good. We only hire the best and it was sheer luck that I got into Adrien's computer so I doubt I could do it in time. That leaves option two: I monitor the network as a whole to look for the file that way so I can intercept it in transit at the router."

Tikki hummed. "So basically, the computers all have locked doors and bars on the windows, but you can look inside to see if they have what you need, and then you'll sit on it until you can do a grab and go while it's on its way to the new location."

Plagg sat up, looking impressed. "That's basically it, but it sounds creepier when you make it sound like kidnapping."

Tikki nodded, feeling pleased with herself. "Thank you. So how do you monitor the network?"

"Here, let me show you." He paused to type at his keyboard for a minute before flipping it back around to show her a black screen with white words scrolling up it. "Everything is broken down into words and phrases. All I need to do is watch for the key phrase to pop up. I'll know where it is, then I can lay a trap for it called 'man in the middle' and 'kidnap' it when the file gets to the router."

Tikki nodded thoughtfully, an idea forming in her mind. "I can help with that."

Plagg shook his head. "You're not missing work just because I did something stupid."

Tikki laughed. "I appreciate that, but I said I can help, not that I'd be the one doing it."

Plagg's head tilted in confusion.

"I happen to know a recently unemployed young lady with nothing but oodles of time on her hands. Though she has the attention span of a sparrow so I'll get in contact with Wayzz, Duusuu, and Trixx as well to see if they can help."

She watched as Plagg's eyes started to shine and he blinked rapidly. "You would do that for me?"

"Of course."

Plagg leaned forward, settling into the crook of her neck as his arms pulled her in close. He said nothing, but could feel him taking deep slow breaths that tickled across her neck. His arms were tight, like he was reassuring himself of her presence. She recalled back when he'd said that his family wasn't particularly close and wondered if the poor boy was having an affection overload. She snuggled in and returned the hug, ready to cuddle him as long as he needed to know she was here and she was staying.

* * *

 **Let me know what you thought!**


	13. Chapter 13

**Suuuuup! I thought I'd suprise you all with an extra chapter!**

 **No recent guest reviews, so onward!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Nothing could kill Plagg's buzz as he walked into work that morning. With cuddles and homemade breakfast and promise of seeing his girlfriend again that night, nothing could ruin his mood.

Adrien stood in his office, holding a button-up shirt and a tie. "I knew you'd forget the meeting with the bank today."

Nope. Still happy. He changed without complaint, tossing his normal shirt onto his desk where Adrien stared at it thoughtfully.

"Didn't you wear that yesterday?"

Plagg silently pulled on the button-up, not wanting to divulge what had happened last night. This morning was his, and right now he didn't feel like sharing. Also, it was one thing to rant and beg for advice from your best friend about the girl you liked and a whole other matter entirely to talk about how she made you all glow-y and happy, but simultaneously want to burst into tears when you realized you'd gone this long without such loving affection before. These were things one simply did not talk about, so he side-eyed the traitorous shirt and shrugged. "I don't know. What shirt did I wear yesterday?"

A Cheshire grin curled across Adrien's face. "That is the same shirt from yesterday! Plagg, did you just have a walk of shame?"

"A walk of shame implies there's something to be ashamed of."

"So you did spend the night a Tikki's!"

"In the sense that I fell asleep on her couch and she didn't bother to wake me – yes. Yes, I did." Refusing to be shamed, he held his head high, readying himself for Adrien's hazing.

Adrien did not meet his expectations. Instead, the guy smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "I'm happy for you."

Plagg blinked, not sure how to handle all of the niceness being handed out to him in one day. "What?"

"You look happy, so I'm happy for you."

Plagg shuffled his feet and looked down. "Whatever. Let's get this meeting over with."

The meeting wasn't that bad. The bank had agreed to take their product (no surprise there; Black Cat was clearly the superior product on the market, thank you very much). The bank gave them their offer and from there it would become a back and forth debate between their finance and legal departments to finalize everything. Hands were shaken. Pictures were taken. Plagg wondered why this couldn't have been done over email, but overall was still riding on this morning's good mood. Still, something niggled at the back of his mind telling him that he'd forgotten something. Something important.

They were escorting their new business partners out when it happened.

"Any news on when your next wine tasting will be?" one of the three asked.

CRAAAAAP! Why wasn't he available? What excuse did he have to give? Think Plagg, think! "I haven't really had time to plan one lately becaaaauuuuse. . . Adrien got engaged!"

All three men turned the now chagrined CEO.

"Congratulations are in order then. When's the big day?

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "We haven't settled on an exact day, but we are tentatively planning for the spring after this one."

The conversation returned to Adrien, and Plagg breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Still, the man had remembered once, he would remember again. He'd have to talk to Tikki about how she'd feel helping him set up a party.

The people left, and Plagg was finally able to check his phone, which had been on silent for the meeting. There was a text from Tikki.

 **I think it's my turn to treat you. How does dinner at your place tomorrow sound?**

He beamed and immediately replied, **Sounds great. Can't wait.**

He hit send and then realized this would be Tikki's first time at his apartment. . . which she was coming over to tomorrow. . . and he hadn't cleaned in he didn't even remember how long. . . CRAAAAAP!

It was now about five minutes before Tikki was supposed to show up. He'd spent the previous night and this one cleaning frantically. He'd also purchased a wax melt thing that has been recommended to him by the sales lady when he'd gone in asking for advice on cleaning products. She'd also sold him actual cleaning products, but she must have smelled his desperation (or perhaps she just smelled him) because she had suggested that he buy it in case there was anything that needed covering up instead of cleaned. She'd said, shoes, but Plagg had thought of the camembert cheese he had aerating on the counter to eat for breakfast.

He wasn't sure the wax melt scent "Clean Linen" was his favorite, but he didn't care for any of the fruity ones and "Cupcake Sprinkles" gave him sugar overload just sniffing it. So here he was, fiddling with the hem of his shirt and wondering if he should go put on a suit for the occasion. Common sense told him that was overkill, but common sense was currently co-piloting with panic and their fight for control left his thoughts flying in repeated circles.

"Get a grip," he muttered to himself. "She's already your girlfriend. Just be yourself and you won't mess this up."

They were the same words Adrien had told him when he'd flown to him in a panic to try and explain why he needed the next two days off to clean his house. He'd refused his request and said that. Plagg had been repeating it to himself any time panic tried to wrestle full control of his thoughts.

He was saved the mistake of acting on his impulse by a knock at the door. Plagg frowned – his apartment complex didn't get solicitors, it was part of why he'd paid extra to live where he did, and the only one who came regularly to get waved past the doorman without buzzing Plagg first was Adrien. What was he doing here?

A second knock at the door reminded him that he should probably open it at some point, preferably sooner rather than later.

"Coming!"

He fumbled with the lock for a bit before finally getting it open to come face to face with . . . his doorman?

He was holding a package and had a smirk on his face.

"Can I help you?" A wash of irritation came over him. This man had interrupted his panicking for no reason!

Instead of answering, he stepped aside to reveal a familiar redhead.

"T-Tikki!"

She smiled. "Your doorman was kind enough to help me carry everything upstairs."

Plagg turned to glare at him. "How very kind of him."

The old man just grinned cheekily. Nosy fart must have wanted to see Plagg's reaction and offered to walk her up instead of buzzing her in. Punk.

Some awkward shuffling was had to get Tikki and her box into the apartment, and then the doorman left, whistling merrily, no doubt on his way to gossip about how Plagg had a girl over. Nosy gossips, all of them. He'd tell them off for it if he wasn't so interested in finding out how things played out with Philippe's daughter and that boy she was purportedly seeing.

Now doubly nervous from the surprise attack girlfriend appearance, Plagg calmed himself down by reminding himself that nothing worse could happen.

"So, is that cooked food, or do you need my kitchen?" He kind of hoped she'd say yes. He'd scrubbed his counters and everything.

"I mostly just need to use your oven to reheat everything. I wasn't sure what your kitchen situation was, so I made everything beforehand."

Well, at least she'd still get to see his hard work. He led her over and let her take control of the space. She bustled about, pulling things from her box while he watched with a small, dopey smile on his face. Which he got any time he remembered that this woman had agreed to be his girlfriend.

She finished up and turned to him with a smile. "Do I get a house tour?"

He waved vaguely around at the space. "House."

She laughed. "Okay, but are you going to actually show me around?"

He shrugged. "Not much to see. My bedroom is over there, the bathroom is the door on the left, and over there is my TV-slash-console gaming station."

"And at the desk is your computer."

"Yup."

"Which is at your house."

"Yes?" What kind of a question was that? Well, it hadn't even sounded like a question and she was looking right at it.

"And definitely not at mine."

Oh.

"Plaaaag."

Oh no.

"You have two desktop computers?"

He remembered, before they were dating, the reason he'd given for coming to see her was because his computer was still at her house after the Lila incident and he was too lazy to bring it home. And there on the desk was a second computer (which he'd bought after because sometimes he needed to do work from home and couldn't stay at Tikki's long enough to get it all done [or concentrate super well]).

"Ummm. . ."

* * *

 **lolz! Oh Plagg, how are you going to get yourself out of this one? Hope you all had fun. Let me know what you think!**


	14. Chapter 14

**Ayyyyy! I actually updated in a decent time frame XD Some stuff that I've been working on for a while now is about to come together big time and I'm super excited for it! It should be happening in the next week or two and I'll let you know when it actually drops. Anyway, enough of my vaugeness, on with the story!**

 **I do not own Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Tikki crossed her arms as she waited for his response. Plagg felt sick with guilt. Surely this was the big mess up that ended it all. He'd messed up already. His body felt cold and clammy while his head felt hot and dizzy. He should just get it over with and rip of the band-aid. She was definitely mad at him. So it surprised him when she suddenly reached forward and grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Plagg, breathe. Please breathe. Your face is turning purple."

He suddenly realized that he hadn't taken a breath the whole time they'd been standing there. He gulped in a lungful of air.

"Okay, good. Now just talk to me. Why do you have two computers?"

"I- um- Well, you see, I wasn't entirely sure how you felt about me in the beginning, but I really liked you and I wanted a chance to see you, so I left my computer at your house so I'd still have a chance to see you."

Her face was still impassive. "So you lied to me?"

He winced. "Not initially. I really did just have the one computer in the beginning, but then things got busy at work, and I need to finish up some stuff from home, so I bought a second computer to could take care of that."

"Why didn't you just bring your first computer home?"

He looked down, toeing at the carpet with his shoe. He felt like a five-year-old caught stealing candy. "'Cause I wasn't sure if you'd let me come back if I took it out."

A fist tapped against his chest, causing him to look up. Tikki gave him a wry smile. "That was stupid and unnecessarily complicated. Please don't do anything like that again. I know words aren't your strong suit, but try to talk to me and don't do stupid round-about things like leave computers at my house just to hang out."

He risked giving a small smile. "I don't think I need to do that anymore."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

Plagg sighed. "But I promise to work harder at sharing my feelings."

She pulled him in for a hug, letting her head nestle snuggly against his chest. "Good. Then you're forgiven."

He wrapped his arms around her in turn. The feeling that he was going to do something bigger to mess up still loomed on him, but he pushed it away for now. She was here; this was now. This wasn't like growing up where everyone had ulterior motives. He didn't think Tikki was capable of ulterior motives. Her face was a total open book.

How long they stood together like that, Plagg wasn't sure. He was sure that it was the growl from his stomach that interrupted the moment.

Tikki pulled back with a small laugh. "We should probably eat before the food burns."

The food was safe, and they both settled in on Plagg's couch since he'd neglected to buy a kitchen table. As a bachelor, he'd eaten most of his food either on his couch or at his desk. He made a mental note to get one, though Tikki didn't seem too upset by the turn of events. They'd finished eating, and she was currently tucked against his side. Her head was resting against his shoulder, and she kept nosing him whenever she moved. He was about two steps from death, but at least it would be a happy death.

As he felt her breath ghost against his neck he suddenly remembered something. "Hey, Bug?"

"Hmmm?" She tilted her head back and now it was her lips that were brushing against his neck instead.

Gosh darnit! Didn't she know what she was doing to him? Judging by the smirk he could feel her mouth curling into, he was inclined to believe she was doing this on purpose. What was he going to say again? Oh, right. "You remember at Comic Con when you were sleep talking? I was just wondering if you really had sniffed me before, and if so, when?"

He would have thought her meep of embarrassment was adorable if it hadn't resulted in her pulling away from his neck to curl up into a ball beside him. "Please forget I ever said that!"

He pulled her small form into his lap and hugged her. "I think we both know that I'm far too curious for that."

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"And satisfaction brought it back."

She made an inarticulate whine and buried her face into his chest. Her little cowlicks tickled his chin as she did so. How was someone this adorable?

"I'm just going to keep asking. Come on. I think it's cute, and I'm really curious."

She looked up at him with a pout. "Do you remember that day during the Lila Incident when we had that big break through and figured out she was a spy?"

"Vividly."

"You kissed me on the cheek in victory. That was the first time, alright?"

"First time? You did it again after that?"

Her whole face flooded with red and her arms began to flap about in panic. Between her fly-away hair and the red sweater she was wearing she looked like an adorable, spastic bug. "You just sat really close to me when we were playing videogames sometimes, okay? It's not like I ever went around deliberately sniffing you or anything, but you smell good and I like it so I would notice it. Now, can we please stop talking about this?"

His grin was about to break his face. He was sure of it. He caught her squirming face between his hands and brought her up to his mouth. He was smiling too much so the kiss was awkward, their lips not quite connecting right. She let out a squeak of surprise.

Her shock didn't last long. Tikki unraveled from her ball of embarrassment and straddled him. His heart was pounding too loudly in his chest to tell if hers was doing the same.

From her position she was now taller than him, and she used that to lean in and deepen the kiss as her hands came up to tangle in his hair. Plagg's own hands came up to grab her by the waist and pull her flush against him. One hand remained in place to keep her there while the other splayed out across her spine and travelled up her back over the sweater, trying to feel as much of her as he could.

A pounding on the door caused them to both jump and Tikki tumbled off him with a shriek. They stared at each other, wide-eyed and panting. Someone banged on the door again, and Plagg growled, getting up from the couch and marching over to the door. If it was his doorman again, he was going to make that man's life absolute chaos.

He wrenched the door inward, letting it slam into his wall. "What?"

"Well, hello to you too," a sassy voice said.

It took him a moment to recognize the red hair and fox-like features. "Trixx? What are you doing here?"

"Tikki invited us," another voice said.

Plagg then noticed that there were four others. The three from the night of the break in at Agreste Industries, Tikki's friends. The fourth was his doorman who looked like he was about to die of laughter. Plagg hoped it was long and painful.

"When did I invite you?"

Plagg glanced to his side to see that Tikki had joined him in the doorway, her clothes only slightly rumpled.

The blond one, Pollen, held up her phone. "You sent a text two days ago asking us to help out help out lover-boy over here with some work thing, and then the next time you texted me, you tell me that you're going over to his place tonight. Clearly this was an invitation so we could plan whatever it is he needs help with this time."

Tikki was pinching the bridge of her nose, and Plagg was seventy percent sure Pollen had deliberately misinterpreted Tikki's text.

"I was telling you I was going on a date. Not inviting you to tag along. How did you even find this place? I didn't give you the address."

"You left your Find My Friends app open," Pollen said with a shrug.

"Should I escort them out then, Sir?" his doorman asked with a wide, shit-eating grin.

Plagg tightened his grip on the door frame to keep himself from hitting the man. He was deliberately causing trouble to stir up gossip. Some part of himself whispered that he'd be finding all of this quite funny if it wasn't happening to himself. "You should have called me before sending them up. I was busy."

His doorman smirked. "Clearly."

What was that supposed to mean?!

He could not, for the life of him, remember the name of the timid, purple haired man in front of him.

"U-um. If we're interrupting, we'll just leave. I'm sure Pollen misinterpreted the text."

Tikki sighed. "It's fine, Nooroo. You guys might as well come inside since you made it all the way here. I was planning on doing this tomorrow, but this is fine I guess."

Plagg sputtered at that, but everyone else ignored him and shuffled in. Well, Trixx and Pollen stalked in like they owned the place and Wayzz gave him a glare before marching past. Nooroo was the only one who shuffled. His doorman gave him a saucy salute before heading back to the elevator, looking far too proud of himself. Once the others were all inside, he resigned himself to no more kissing for the rest of the night and shut the door with a heavy sigh.

Plagg gave a small shout of fright when he turned around to see Nooroo standing unnecessarily close.

Nooroo jumped as well and began to utter a stream of, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Plagg held his hand up to get the other guy to stop. "It's fine. You just startled me is all. Can I help you?"

"Um- I- Uh- You- You have a little something- right here." He used his own face and indicated a spot in the left corner of his mouth.

Plagg reached up to wipe away said spot and looked down, expecting to see a bit of sauce or something from dinner, but found that was not it at all. He suddenly understood why his doorman had looked so smug. He was also pretty sure he knew why Wayzz had looked ready to hit him. He felt his face heat up.

Smeared across his finger was a streak of bright pink lip gloss. The exact same shade as Tikki's.

* * *

 **Hope you all enjoyed! Have a great day!**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hello lovelies! Here's the next chapter! I've now caught up to what I've written so it might be another minute before I get another one up, but I'll try my darndest to keep that from happening. Though this Kickstarter is taking up more of my time than I initially thought it would (more on that later).**

 **Hope you all enjoy!**

 **I do not own anything Miraculous Ladybug.**

* * *

Tikki was just about ready to murder each and every person in the room. Except Plagg. Though he would probably be ready to join her on that murder spree in a heartbeat if she asked. Apparently he "knew a guy".

On second thought, she'd just withhold all baking from them until further notice. That was the more legal punishment and perhaps the more logical one. You take away her date night, she takes away your cookies. Fair is fair.

"-ug. Bug, you with us?"

Tikki blinked, surprised to see Plagg and all her friends staring at her. She was busy plotting all of the delicious sweets she was going to bake and take pictures of to share with her friends (and then not share) that she didn't even notice she'd missed out on Plagg getting into serious mode explaining the nitty-gritty of what their job would be to help with his company's capture the flag game.

She blushed, "Sorry, I got distracted."

"By how good your boyfriend looks with pick lipstick?" Trixx asked with a snicker.

Plagg reached up to rub at his mouth again, even though the evidence had already been wiped off. Poor guy looked about ready to burst into flames over the incident.

" _Anyway_ ," Plagg said, not even bothering to hide his topic switch. "To summarize what I just said, the main thing I'm going to need from you guys is to watch the data for me when I can't and keep an eye out for the key words I told you about. I would suggest going in shifts of one to two hours because staring at the screens can get pretty intense on the eyes especially if you're not used to it."

Pollen raised her hand, like they were in a class or something. "Do we get to stay here while we're doing the spy thing then?"

Plagg held his arms out in front of him in an "X" formation. "Over my cheese stuffed corpse will you stay in my apartment while I'm not in it. Tikki has a perfectly adequate set up at her place, and if she's not comfortable with that, I will get you all a hotel room to stay in."

"Oooo! Can it be a presidential suite?" Pollen asked excitedly.

Tikki could just see the dollar signs her friend was about to try to wring from her boyfriend and stepped in. "My apartment is fine. You all know where I keep my spare key, so you can let yourselves in even if I'm not home."

"Booooo. No fun," Pollen said with a pout.

"Don't worry, Queenie, there's still plenty of fun things to do at Tikki's," Trixx said, reaching out to give Pollen a pat on the head.

"No parties and no funny business. I don't feel like having to get a new apartment just yet," Tikki warned. Her friends were all great, but if Trixx or Pollen were planning something then things had a tendency to get out of hand real quick.

"Booooo. No fun," Pollen and Trixx said together this time.

"Well I believe that covers everything that you all needed to know, so if that concludes our meeting then may I suggest that we separate until we convene at a later date once I set everything up at Tikki's _tomorrow_ ," Plagg said, interrupting them.

Tikki brought a hand up to cover her smile. He wasn't even being subtle about his disgruntlement over them crashing their date. She didn't know if 'subtle' was even something Plagg was capable of. Unfortunately for him, this was her friends they were talking about and they weren't about to let an opportunity like this slide any time soon.

"So what sort of gaming system do you have?" Trixx asked, completely ignoring their dismissal.

"I only have single player games."

Tikki raised an eyebrow at the lie, but didn't correct him in front of everyone. They were also being rude by overstaying their welcome after all.

Trixx, never one to be deterred, hopped off the couch and went to inspect the gaming set up just under the TV. "I have this system too. We can just log onto my account and use mine. I have plenty of multi-player games."

Plagg took a deep breath and looked between Trixx and Tikki, visibly weighing his options. Tikki waited, giving him a shrug to let him know that the choice was his to make.

He brought his hands together in prayer position as he took a moment to compose himself. "Fine, but I have terrible snacks and if you fall asleep on my couch I will dump you in front of a homeless shelter."

Trixx cackled, pushing buttons and making themselves at home. "I already ordered chinese food while you were talking. It should be here soon."

Everyone else settled in for a good time. The food arrived as they were finishing up a rock-paper-scissors game to figure out who would get to pick what they played. Plagg won and selected a racing game from Trixx's collection and the group set up a competition to see who was the best in a series of PvP rounds. Tikki joined in as well, doing her best to have fun, though she noticed some tension between Plagg and Wayzz.

For the life of her though, she couldn't figure out why. The two had only met the once before at the Lila incident that the brief period in her life when she and Wayzz had dated was long over and they'd both moved on. Right? What could he possibly have to be mad at Plagg for?

The game ended with Tikki as the winner (Dupain-Cheng girls have a reputation to uphold) and shortly after that Noroo excused himself saying he had to get ready for work in the morning, dragging Pollen with him since they'd driven together.

Trixx stood with a long stretch. "Hey Teek, can I borrow your phone for a minute? Mine's almost dead."

Tikki obliged, and Trixx stepped out into the hallway to make a very short phone call. They came back in less than a minute later and returned Tikki's phone, laying it face down on the seat cushion beside her before grabbing Tikki herself and saying, "All right, I best be off as well. Tikki, would you walk me to my car?"

Tikki raised an eyebrow but let herself be dragged out of the apartment. When they reached the elevator, she turned to her friend. "And just what was that about?"

Trixx raised a finger to their mouth and pulled out their phone, which looked suspiciously not dead. In fact, it was in the middle of a phone call… to Tikki?

Trixx put the phone on speaker and they both heard Plagg's voice.

"All right, everyone else has left. Now would you like to explain the death glares? I don't remember doing anything to you."

"I don't trust you," they heard Wayzz say.

"I don't trust people either. Again though, what did I do to you?"

"It's not about me, it's about Tikki."

"What about her?" His tone turned defensive and she could just picture him with his arms crossed and shoulders raised. All it would take was a hiss and then he'd be the perfect image of a cornered cat.

"What exactly are your intentions with her?"

There was silence between the two and the elevator dinged open to let Tikki and Trixx know that they'd reached their floor. Neither stepped out.

"You are neither her father, nor her brother, so I don't see what business you have having this talk with me."

"She's my friend and I'm looking out for her."

"She's not some damsel in distress. She's a grown-ass woman who can make her own life choices. One of which happens to be dating me, and until I actually do something to deserve an interrogation, I suggest you back off. Have some faith in her."

Wayzz gave a noncommittal grunt, and they heard a rustling that Tikki assumed was Wayzz sitting down. There was a 'fump' which made Tikki think Plagg had also sat down.

After another moment of silence Plagg spoke up again. "Thanks for looking out for her though."

Wayzz sighed. "I guess, to me, she'll always be the girl on the couch."

Tikki blinked back tears, thinking of that dark time in her life when she'd been little more than a homeless waif mindlessly staring at nothing on Wayzz's couch. Yeah, she could see how he had a hard time getting over that. She had a hard time herself some days. He was still going to get an earful from her later for not minding his own business.

"Yeah, well, to me she's a helluva lot more than that."

"Just promise me that you're serious about this," Wayzz said.

"She's my best friend's future wife's sister. I did not enter into that madmaxian world of awkward family reunions without a _lot_ of thought."

Wayzz gave a snort of laughter. "Fair enough."

Trixx reached out and cut off the call. "Well I think that's enough snooping for both of us today."

Tikki turned to her friend. "Please don't ever bug my boyfriend's apartment again."

Trixx waved her off with a toss of their ponytail. "Oh, like you weren't dying to know what all that passive aggressive flexing was either."

"I could have just asked Plagg later."

"Ah, but this was so much more fun. Toodles!" Trixx said with a wink, stepping out of the elevator at last.

Tikki hit the button to Plagg's floor and leaned back on the far wall as the doors slid close. What exactly was she supposed to do with this information? Dangit Trixx! That sneaky fox just couldn't keep their nose out of other people's business. Not that she was better. She'd stood there listening in on every word just as intensely as Trixx had.

Before she could properly gather her thoughts, the elevator dinged once more and slid open to reveal Wayzz, who had no idea she'd heard everything he'd just said. Did she have the emotional energy to tell him off tonight? No. No she did not.

She gave him a tired smile and a wave before trading places.

"Hey!"  
Tikki turned around to see that Wayzz had put his hand out to stop the doors from closing. "Yes?"

"Sorry about being... kinda weird tonight."

"Weird is a world for it," Tikki said.

"I just... it was me. It was my fault and I'm sorry."

"Okay?"

"Also..." Wayzz trailed off, biting his lip.

"Yes?"

"Plagg seems like an okay guy."

She smiled. "He is. I think he's a great guy."

He shuffled awkwardly for a bit and pulled his hand back. "Night."

She gave him a small wave. "Night."

The walk back to Plagg's apartment was otherwise uneventful and he was waiting for her when she walked back in. He wrapped his arms around her the moment she entered.

"Recharge meeee!" he moaned, wrapping around her.

She pulled back just enough to lead him over to the couch and then snuggled in once he was settled. "At this point, wouldn't it be better to actually go to sleep?"

He shook his head, chin messing up her hair as he did so. "I was promised one on one time with my girlfriend and gosh darnit, I'm gonna get it."

She giggled. "I have to go home at some point too, you know."

"You could stay here," Plagg said, hugging her closer.

Tikki stilled, considering his offer.

Plagg filled the silence. "Or not. You don't have to, but I just wanted you to know that it's an option. I crashed at your place. You crash at mine. Even-stevens then. But if you want to go you can go, but if you're feeling tired at least let me pay for someone to drive you home."

Tikki turned around and gave him a gentle kiss to silence his fears. "Staying sounds like a great idea to me."

* * *

 **If you're just here for the story, ignore this (though I encourage everyone to at least read the last sentence).**

 **Alright, I said I'd talk more about my Kickstater thing- so Monday I started a Kickstarter to try and fundraise the money I need to pay for an illustrator and publishing for a children's picture book I wrote. That's the big project that I've been working on that's been sucking up so much of my time. I think it's overall going well, but even after months of prep work, I still feel woefully unprepared for this. But I don't think I could have learned any more before hand than I already did so at this point it's all experience/trial and error and I'm not tanking yet, so I guess I'm not doing completely awful.**

 **The book is a retelling of The Ugly Duckling with a twist- what if it was about an endangered red panda raised by cats? I'm rather proud of it, if I do say so myself and I hope this works out. It's running until March 17 and during it I'll be running too (bad pun, I know). Today I went to a bunch of different coffee shops and indi businesses to place flyers. I expect tomorrow to take even longer because I'm hitting the town over from me to do the same thing (hence why I'm posting today instead of my normal Wednesday).**

 **If you want to check it out you can go to Kickstarter and look up Lee Wilder (my author name), Endangered Fairytails (my series name), or The Ugly Kitten (the title of the book). Even if you can't back the project, I would still be eternally grateful to anyone who shared the link on their social media.**

 **This is a childhood dream of mine so I'm kind of terrified to put it out there in an all or nothing format like Kickstarter, but after support and encouragement from my family and from hearing such wonderful feedback from all of you I finally got the courage to put myself out there and try.**

 **So no matter what happens, thank you all for reading and commenting and just being your wonderful selves!**


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